Description
Race
By John R. Baker. This book is finally back in stock with a third edition, updated with world DNA map.
Written by an Oxford University professor, Race maps out almost every aspect of the biological differences between different races. It describes species and races (subspecies), hybrids, and those theories of evolution that allow the various groups of animals to be graded as more or less primitive or advanced.
Drawing on physical and cultural anthropology, paleontology, prehistoric archeology, art history and 19th-century accounts of Africans until then secluded from contact with other human groups, this book features sections on Europids, Jews, Kelts, Australids, Sanids (Bushmen) and the Negrids.
In the final part, the author reviews in depth the evidence on cognitive ability and reaches the measured conclusion that in certain races a greater proportion of people are capable of developing high intelligence than in others.
Baker explores the nature of civilization, giving 23 criteria by which civilizations may be identified. He explores the relationship between the biological traits and the cultures of five civilizations.
Based on these criteria, Baker declared that Mesoamerican societies such as the Aztecs and Maya were not civilizations, and that no indigenous civilizations ever arose in sub-Saharan Africa.
Baker rejected the methodological relativism that has characterized anthropology since the days of Franz Boas, instead going back to earlier ideas of hereditarianism and cultural evolution.
The last section discusses why some races achieved civilization and others have not.
Includes the new section “Race and the Science of DNA.”
Oversized softcover, 425 pages
