Synopses & Reviews
When published in 1981,
The Mismeasure of Man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits.
Yet the idea of of biology as destiny dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined. In this edition, Stephen Jay Gould has written a substantial new introduction telling how and why he wrote the book and tracing the subsequent history of the controversy on innateness right through The Bell Curve. Further, he has added five essays on questions of The Bell Curve in particular and on race, racism, and biological determinism in general. These additions strengthen the book's claim to be, as Leo J. Kamin of Princeton University has said, "a major contribution toward deflating pseudo-biological 'explanations' of our present social woes."
Review
"A rare book---at once of great importance and wonderful to read." ---Saturday Review
Synopsis
The definitive refutation to biological determinism from renowned scientist and National Book Award winner Stephen Jay Gould.
About the Author
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) was the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Geology at Harvard University. He published over twenty books, including The Book of Life, Ever Since Darwin, The Flamingo's Smile, and Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes. Stephen received the National Book and National Book Critics Circle Awards, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Arthur Morey has performed in theaters and cabarets in New York, Chicago, and Milan. He freelanced scripts for Paramount and ABC-TV and won awards for both plays and fiction. A former literary manager of Chicago's Body Politic Theatre, he taught acting at Fordham and writing at SUNY Rockland, Northwestern University, and the School of the Art Institute. He edited Viola Spolin for Northwestern University Press and later was managing editor at Renaissance Books in Los Angeles. Winner of a number AudioFile Earphones Awards, he has narrated novels by John Irving, Nathan Englander, Richard Russo, and John Burnam Schwartz, as well as nonfiction by Kurt Eichenwald, John McCain, George Tenet, Deepak Chopra, Gay Talese, and others.