cover image Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race

Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race

. University of North Carolina Press, $47.5 (226pp) ISBN 978-0-8078-2916-5

The adoption of eugenics as a guiding principle by German scientists and doctors was an important step on the way to the Holocaust, though the victims of eugenics were not necessarily Jews, since physically or mentally disabled Aryans were viewed as genetically""undesirable"" to the""master race"" as well. This well-edited and useful volume traces the progression from the reformist impulse underlying the original eugenics theory (which proposed to improve the human race) to the formation of theories about racial superiority and to the later justification of genocide. With chapters contributed by leading scholars such as science historian Daniel Kevles (author of In the Name of Eugenics), who provides an international context for German eugenics, and women's historian Gisela Bock, on""Nazi sterilization and reproductive policies,"" this companion to an exhibit of the same title at the Holocaust Memorial Museum explains how the adoption of a false science ended in catastrophe. (The exhibit will show from April 21, 2004 through Oct. 16, 2005.) The editors add a useful chronology covering nearly a century, from 1859 to 1947, extensive period illustrations and a substantial list of further reading, making this an excellent starting place for anyone who wants to understand a key factor that contributed to the Holocaust.