View source for Historical race concepts

{{short description|Disused conception of a person's racial or ethnic makeup}}
[[File:Ellka_Five_Races.jpg|thumb|1911 poster of the "Five Races of Man"]]
{{Race}} 
The concept of [[race (human categorization)|race]] as a  categorization of [[anatomically modern human]]s (''[[Homo sapiens]]'') has an extensive history in Europe and the Americas. The contemporary word ''race'' itself is modern; historically it was used in the sense of "[[nation]], [[ethnic group]]" during the 16th to 19th centuries.<ref>Kennedy, Rebecca F. (2013). "Introduction". Race and Ethnicity in the Classical world : An Anthology of Primary Sources in Translation. Hackett Publishing Company. p. xiii. ISBN 978-1603849944. "The ancients would not understand the social construct we call "race" any more than they would understand the distinction modem scholars and social scientists generally draw between race and "ethnicity." The modern concept of race is a product of the colonial enterprises of European powers from the 16th to 18th centuries that identified race in terms of skin color and physical difference. In the post-Enlightenment world, a "scientific," biological idea of race suggested that human difference could be explained by biologically distinct groups of humans, evolved from separate origins, who could be distinguished by physical differences, predominantly skin color...Such categorizations would have confused the ancient Greeks and Romans."</ref><ref>Bancel, Nicolas; David, Thomas; Thomas, Dominic, eds. (23 May 2019). "Introduction: The Invention of Race: Scientific and Popular Representations of Race from Linnaeus to the Ethnic Shows". The Invention of Race : Scientific and Popular Representations. Routledge. p. 11. ISBN 978-0367208646. 'The Invention of Race' has assisted us in the process of locating the "epistemological moment," somewhere between 1730 and 1790, when the concept of race was invented and rationalized. A "moment" that was accompanied by a revolution in the way in which the human body was studied and observed in order to formulate scientific conclusions relating to human variability."</ref> Race acquired its modern meaning in the field of [[physical anthropology]] through [[scientific racism]] starting in the 19th century. With the rise of modern [[genetics]], the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete. The [[American Anthropological Association|American Anthropological Association's]] 1998 "Statement on Race" outlined race as a social construct, not biological reality.<ref>{{Cite web |title=AAA Statement on Race |url=https://americananthro.org/about/policies/statement-on-race/ |access-date= |website=The American Anthropological Association |language=en-US}}</ref> In 2019, the [[American Association of Biological Anthropologists]] stated: "The belief in 'races' as natural aspects of human biology, and the structures of inequality (racism) that emerge from such beliefs, are among the most damaging elements in the human experience both today and in the past."<ref name="AAPARace">{{cite web|author=American Association of Physical Anthropologists|title=AAPA Statement on Race and Racism |website=American Association of Physical Anthropologists|access-date=19 June 2020 |date=27 March 2019 |url=https://physanth.org/about/position-statements/aapa-statement-race-and-racism-2019/}}</ref>

==Etymology==
The word "race", interpreted to mean an identifiable group of people who share a [[common descent]], was introduced into [[English language|English]] in the 16th century from the Old French ''{{Wikt-lang|fr|rasse}}'' (1512), from Italian ''{{Wikt-lang|it|razza}}'': the [[Oxford English Dictionary]] cites the earliest example around the mid-16th century and defines its early meaning as a "group of people belonging to the same family and descended from a common ancestor".<ref>“Race, N. (6).”, I.1.a., Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, March 2024, <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/5821361223</nowiki>.</ref> It also introduces the first use of the word "race" as a term referring to an "ethnic group" in 1572.<ref>“Race, N. (6).”, I.1.b., Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, March 2024, <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/582136122</nowiki></ref> An earlier but etymologically distinct word for a similar concept was the Latin word ''{{Wikt-lang|la|genus}}'' meaning a group sharing qualities related to birth, descent, origin, race, stock, or family; this Latin word is [[cognate]] with the Greek words "genos", ({{Wikt-lang|el|γένος}}) meaning "race or kind", and "gonos", which has meanings related to "birth, offspring, stock ...".<ref name=OEDHarper>{{cite web| url=https://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=genus | title= Online Etymology Dictionary | work= genus | publisher= Douglas Harper | access-date = March 31, 2008}}</ref>

==Early history==
In many ancient civilizations, individuals with widely varying physical appearances became full members of a [[society]] by growing up within that society or by adopting that society's [[culture|cultural]] [[norm (sociology)|norms]] (Snowden 1983; Lewis 1990).{{pages needed|date=July 2021}}

[[Classical civilization]]s from [[Ancient Rome|Rome]] to [[History of China#Ancient China|China]] tended to invest the most importance in [[family|familial]] or tribal affiliation rather than an individual's physical appearance (Dikötter 1992; Goldenberg 2003). Societies still tended to equate physical characteristics, such as hair and eye colour, with psychological and moral qualities, usually assigning the highest qualities to their own people and lower qualities to the "Other", either lower classes or outsiders to their society. For example, a historian of the 3rd century [[Han dynasty]] in the territory of present-day China describes [[barbarian]]s of blond hair and green eyes as resembling "the monkeys from which they are descended".<ref name=Gossett>Gossett, Thomas F. New Edition, ''Race: The History of an Idea in America.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. {{ISBN|0-19-509778-5}}</ref>

Dominant in ancient Greek and Roman conceptions of human diversity was the thesis that physical differences between different populations could be attributed to environmental factors. Though ancient peoples likely had no knowledge of evolutionary theory or genetic variability, their concepts of race could be described as malleable. Chief among environmental causes for physical difference in the ancient period were climate and geography. Though Greek thinkers in ancient civilizations recognized differences in physical characteristics between different populations, the general consensus among Greeks was that all non-Greeks were barbarians. This barbarian status, however, was not thought to be fixed; rather, one could shed the 'barbarian' status simply by adopting Greek culture.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Emperor's new clothes : biological theories of race at the millennium|author=Graves, Joseph L.|date=2001|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=9780813533025|location=New Brunswick, N.J.|oclc=44066982}}</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2021}}

===Classical antiquity===
[[File:Hippocrates rubens.jpg|thumb|right|170px|[[Hippocrates of Kos]]]]

[[Hippocrates of Kos]] believed, as many thinkers throughout early history did, that factors such as geography and climate played a significant role in the physical appearance of different peoples. He writes, "The forms and dispositions of mankind correspond with the nature of the country." He attributed physical and temperamental differences among different peoples to environmental factors such as climate, water sources, elevation, and terrain. He noted that temperate climates created peoples who were "sluggish" and "not apt for labor", while extreme climates led to peoples who were "sharp", "industrious", and "vigilant". He also noted that peoples of "mountainous, rugged, elevated, and well-watered" countries displayed "enterprising" and "warlike" characteristics, while peoples of "level, windy, and well-watered" countries were "unmanly" and "gentle".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/airwatpl.24.24.html|title=The Internet Classics Archive - On Airs, Waters, and Places by Hippocrates|website=classics.mit.edu}}</ref>

The Roman emperor [[Julian (emperor)|Julian]] factored in the constitutions, laws, capacities, and character of peoples:

{{blockquote|"Come, tell me why it is that the Celts and the Germans are fierce, while the Hellenes and Romans are, generally speaking, inclined to political life and humane, though at the same time unyielding and warlike? Why the Egyptians are more intelligent and more given to crafts, and the Syrians unwarlike and effeminate, but at the same time intelligent, hot-tempered, vain and quick to learn? For if there is anyone who does not discern a reason for these differences among the nations, but rather declaims that all this so befell spontaneously, how, I ask, can he still believe that the universe is administered by a providence?"<ref>[https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/julian_apostate_galileans_1_text.htm "Against the Galilaeans"] Book I, translated by [[Wilmer Cave Wright]], PH.D.</ref>}}

===Middle Ages===
European [[medieval]] models of race generally mixed [[Graeco-Roman|Classical]] ideas with the notion that humanity as a whole was descended from [[Shem]], [[Ham (son of Noah)|Ham]] and [[Japheth]], the three [[sons of Noah]], producing distinct [[Semitic people|Semitic]] ([[Asia]]tic), [[Hamitic]] ([[Africa]]n), and [[Japhetites|Japhetic]] ([[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]]) peoples. Some critics have alleged that the association between the sons of Noah and skin color dates back at least to the Babylonian ''[[Talmud]]'', which some have argued states that the descendants of Ham were cursed with black skin.<ref name="Goldenberg">{{Cite book|last=Goldenberg|first=David|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263161670|title=Struggles in the Promised Land|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1997|isbn=|location=Oxford |pages=21–51|chapter=The Curse of Ham: A Case of Rabbinic Racism?}}</ref> In the seventh century, the idea that black Africans were cursed with both dark skin and slavery began to gain strength with some Islamic writers, as black Africans became a slave class in the Islamic world.<ref name="Goldenberg" />

In the 9th century, [[Al-Jahiz]], an [[Afro-Arab]] [[Early Islamic philosophy|Islamic philosopher]], attempted to explain the origins of different [[human skin color]]s, particularly [[Black people|black skin]], which he believed to be the result of the environment. He cited a stony region of black [[basalt]] in the northern [[Najd]] as evidence for his theory.<ref>{{cite journal| last = Conrad| first = Lawrence I.| title=Tāʿūn and Wabāʾ Conceptions of Plague and Pestilence in Early Islam.| journal = Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient| volume = 25| issue = 3| pages = 268–307 [278] "[It] is so unusual that its gazelles and ostriches, its insects and flies, its foxes, sheep and asses, its horses and its birds are all black. Blackness and whiteness are in fact caused by the properties of the region, as well as by the God-given nature of water and soil and by the proximity or remoteness of the sun and the intensity or mildness of its heat."|date=June 1982| doi = 10.2307/3632188 | jstor=3632188| s2cid = 162335805}}</ref>

In the 14th century, the [[Sociology in medieval Islam|Islamic sociologist]] [[Ibn Khaldun]], dispelled the Babylonian ''Talmud'''s account of peoples and their characteristics as a myth. He wrote that black skin was due to the hot climate of [[sub-Saharan Africa]] and not due to the descendants of Ham being cursed.<ref>{{Cite journal|title='Race', slavery and Islam in Maghribi Mediterranean thought: the question of the Haratin in Morocco|first=Chouki|last=El Hamel|journal=The Journal of North African Studies|volume=7|issue=3|year=2002|pages=29–52 [39–42]|doi=10.1080/13629380208718472|s2cid=219625829}}</ref>

Independently of Ibn Khaldun's work, the question of whether skin colour is heritable or a product of the environment is raised in 17th to 18th century European anthropology. 
[[Georgius Hornius]] (1666) inherits the rabbinical view of heritability, while [[François Bernier]] (1684) argues for at least partial influence of the environment. 
Ibn Khaldun's work was later{{year needed|date=March 2018}} translated into French, especially for use in Algeria, but in the process, the work was "transformed from local knowledge to colonial categories of knowledge"{{Clarify|date=March 2018}}<!--what does this even mean? whose opinion and/or terminology are we citing?-->.<ref name="Hannoum">[https://www.jstor.org/pss/3590803 Abdelmajid Hannoum, "Translation and the Colonial Imaginary: Ibn Khaldun Orientalist"], ''History and Theory'', Vol. 42, Feb 2003</ref> [[William Desborough Cooley]]'s ''The Negro Land of the Arabs Examined and Explained'' (1841) has excerpts of translations of Khaldun's work that were not affected by French colonial ideas.<ref name="Cooley" /> For example, Cooley quotes Khaldun's describing the great African civilization of [[Ghana Empire|Ghana]] (in Cooley's translation):

<blockquote>
"When the conquest of the West (by the Arabs) was completed, and merchants began to penetrate into the interior, they saw no nation of the Blacks so mighty as Ghánah, the dominions of which extended westward as far as the Ocean. The King's court was kept in the city of Ghánah, which, according to the author of the 'Book of Roger' (El Idrisi), and the author of the 'Book of Roads and Realms' (El Bekri), is divided into two parts, standing on both banks of the Nile, and ranks among the largest and most populous cities of the world.

The people of Ghánah had for neighbours, on the east, a nation, which, according to historians, was called Súsú; after which came another named Máli; and after that another known by the name of Kaǘkaǘ; although some people prefer a different orthography, and write this name Kághó. The last-named nation was followed by a people called Tekrúr. The people of Ghánah declined in course of time, being overwhelmed or absorbed by the Molaththemún (or muffled people; that is, the Morabites), who, adjoining them on the north towards the [[Berber people|Berber]] country, attacked them, and, taking possession of their territory, compelled them to embrace the [[Mohammedan]] religion. The people of Ghánah, being invaded at a later period by the Súsú, a nation of Blacks in their neighbourhood, were exterminated, or mixed with other Black nations."<ref name="Cooley">[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_6swTAAAAYAAJ/page/n68 <!-- pg=61 --> William Desborough Cooley, ''The Negro Land of the Arabs Examined and Explained''], London: J. Arrowsmith, pp. 61–62</ref>
</blockquote>

Ibn Khaldun suggests a link between the rise of the [[Almoravid dynasty|Almoravids]] and the decline of Ghana. However, historians have found virtually no evidence for an Almoravid conquest of Ghana.<ref>[http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/~amcdouga/Hist446/readings/conquest_in_west_african_historiography.pdf Pekka Masonen, ''Not Quite Venus from the Waves: The Almoravid Conquest of Ghana in the Modern Historiography of Western Africa''], Humphrey J. Fisher, 1996</ref><ref>David Conrad and Humphrey Fisher, [https://www.jstor.org/pss/3171598 "The Conquest That Never Was: Ghana and the Almoravids, 1076, Vol. I: The External Arabic Sources"], ''History of Africa'', Vol. 9 (1982), African Studies Association</ref>

==Early modern period==
Scientists who were interested in natural history, including biological and geological scientists, were known as "[[naturalists]]". They would collect, examine, describe, and arrange data from their explorations into categories according to certain criteria. People who were particularly skilled at organizing specific sets of data in a logically and comprehensive fashion were known as classifiers and systematists. This process was a new trend in science that served to help answer fundamental questions by collecting and organizing materials for systematic study, also known as [[Taxonomy (general)|taxonomy]].<ref name="Smedley, Audrey 1999">Smedley, Audrey. ''Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview''. Boulder: Westview Press, 1999.</ref>

As the study of natural history grew, so did scientists' effort to classify human groups. Some zoologists and scientists wondered what made humans different from animals in the primate family. Furthermore, they contemplated whether homo sapiens should be classified as one species with multiple varieties or separate species. In the 16th and 17th century, scientists attempted to classify ''Homo sapiens'' based on a geographic arrangement of human populations based on skin color, others simply on geographic location, shape, stature, food habits, and other distinguishing characteristics. Occasionally the term "race" was used, but most of the early taxonomists used classificatory terms, such as "peoples", "nations", "types", "varieties", and "species".

Italian philosopher [[Giordano Bruno]] (1548–1600) and French philosopher [[Jean Bodin]] (1530–1596), attempted a rudimentary geographic arrangement of known human populations based on skin color. Bodin's color classifications were purely descriptive, including neutral terms such as "duskish colour, like roasted quinze", "black", "chestnut", and "farish white".<ref name="Smedley, Audrey 1999"/>

===17th century===
German scientist [[Bernhard Varen]] (1622–1650) and English scientist [[John Ray]] (1627–1705) classified human populations into categories according to stature, shape, food habits, and skin color, along with any other distinguishing characteristics.<ref name="Smedley, Audrey 1999"/>
Ray was also the first person to produce a biological definition of [[species]].

[[François Bernier]] (1625–1688) is believed to have developed the first comprehensive classification of humans into distinct races which was published in a French journal article in 1684, ''Nouvelle division de la terre par les différentes espèces ou races l'habitant'', (New division of Earth by the different species or races which inhabit it). (Gossett, 1997:32–33). Bernier advocated using the "four quarters" of the globe as the basis for providing labels for human differences.<ref name="Smedley, Audrey 1999"/> The four subgroups that Bernier used were Europeans, Far Easterners, Negroes (blacks), and Lapps.<ref name="C. Loring, Brace 2005">C. Loring, Brace. ''"Race" is a Four-Letter Word: the Genesis of the Concept''. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.</ref>

===18th century===
{{Unreferenced section|date=April 2022}}
{{see also|Scientific racism#Antecedents}}
{{further|Color terminology for race}}

As noted earlier, scientists attempted to classify ''Homo sapiens'' based on a geographic arrangement of human populations. Some based their hypothetical divisions of race on the most obvious physical differences, like skin color, while others used geographic location, shape, stature, food habits, and other distinguishing characteristics to delineate between races. However, [[Cultural relativism|cultural notions]] of racial and gender superiority tainted early scientific discovery. In the 18th century, scientists began to include behavioral or psychological traits in their reported observations—which traits often had derogatory or demeaning implications—and researchers often assumed that those traits were related to their race, and therefore, innate and unchangeable. Other areas of interest were to determine the exact number of races, categorize and name them, and examine the primary and secondary causes of variation between groups.

The [[great chain of being]], a medieval idea that there was a hierarchical structure of life from the most fundamental elements to the most perfect, began to encroach upon the idea of race. As taxonomy grew, scientists began to assume that the human species could be divided into distinct subgroups. One's "race" necessarily implied that one group had certain character qualities and physical dispositions that differentiated it from other human populations. Society{{who|date=July 2019}} assigned different values to those differentiations, as well as other, more trivial traits (a man with a strong chin was assumed to possess a stronger character than men with weaker chins). This essentially created a gap between races by deeming one race superior or inferior to another race, thus creating a hierarchy of races. In this way, science was used as justification for unfair treatment of different human populations.

The systematization of race concepts during [[Age of Enlightenment|the Enlightenment]] period brought with it the conflict between [[monogenism]] (a single origin for all human races) and [[polygenism]] (the hypothesis that races had separate origins). This debate was originally cast in [[Creationism|creationist]] terms as a question of one versus many creations of humanity, but continued after [[evolution]] was widely accepted, at which point the question was given in terms of whether humans had split from their ancestral species one or many times.

====Johann Friedrich Blumenbach====
[[File:Engraving; five skulls of different races. Wellcome L0010930.jpg|thumb|right|upright 1.5|Blumenbach's five races]]
[[File:Johann Friedrich Blumenbach.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Johann Friedrich Blumenbach]]
[[Johann Friedrich Blumenbach]] (1752–1840) divided the human [[species]] into five [[Race (classification of human beings)|races]] in 1779, later founded on crania research (description of human skulls), and called them (1793/1795):<ref>Blumenbach, J. F. 1779. ''Handbuch der Naturgeschichte'' vol. 1, pp. 63f. The names of Blumenbach's five groups are introduced in his 1795 revision of ''De generis humani varietate nativa'' (pp. 23f.) as ''Caucasiae, Mongolicae, Aethiopicae, Americanae, Malaicae''. See also: Kowner and Skott in: R. Kowner, W. Demel (eds.), ''Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Interactions, Nationalism, Gender and Lineage'' (2015), p. 51.</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Johann Friedrich Blumenbach|title=Handbuch der Naturgeschichte|page=62|year=1797|url=https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/book/view/blumenbach_naturgeschichte_1797?p=84|access-date=2020-06-06}}</ref>
* the [[Caucasian race|Caucasian]] or white race. Blumenbach was the first to use this term for [[Ethnic groups in Europe|Europeans]], but the term would later be reinterpreted to also include [[Ethnic groups in the Middle East|Middle Easterners]] and [[South Asian ethnic groups|South Asians]].
* the [[Mongoloid|Mongolian]] or yellow race, including all [[East Asian people|East Asians]].
* the [[Malay race|Malayan]] or brown race, including [[Ethnic groups of Southeast Asia|Southeast Asians]] and [[Indigenous peoples of Oceania|Pacific Islanders]].
* the [[Negroid|Ethiopian]] or black race, including all [[List of ethnic groups of Africa|sub-Saharan Africans]].
* the American or red race, including all [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]].

Blumenbach argued that physical characteristics like the collective characteristic types of facial structure and hair characteristics, skin color, cranial profile, etc., depended on geography and nutrition and custom. Blumenbach's work included his description of sixty [[Human cranium|human crania]] (skulls) published originally in fascicules as ''Decas craniorum'' (Göttingen, 1790–1828). This was a founding work for other scientists in the field of [[craniometry]].

Further anatomical study led him to the conclusion that 'individual Africans differ as much, or even more, from other individual Africans as Europeans differ from Europeans'. Furthermore, he concluded that Africans were not inferior to the rest of mankind 'concerning healthy faculties of understanding, excellent natural talents and mental capacities'.<ref>Jack Hitt, "Mighty White of You: Racial Preferences Color America's Oldest Skulls and Bones", ''Harper's'', July 2005, pp. 39–55</ref>
<blockquote>

"Finally, I am of opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of negroes of capacity, it would not be difficult to mention entire well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect to obtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the Paris Academy; and on the other hand, there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth, as the Negro."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u9QKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA312|title=The Anthropological Treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach ...|first1=Johann Friedrich|last1=Blumenbach|first2=Thomas|last2=Bendyshe|author-link2=Thomas Bendyshe|year=1973|orig-date=26 October 1865|publisher=Anthropological Society|isbn=9780878211241|via=Google Books}}</ref>
</blockquote>

These five groups saw some continuity in the various classification schemes of the 19th century, in some cases augmented, e.g. by the [[Australoid race]]<ref>subsumed under "Aethiopian" ("black") by Blumenbach; introduced by [[Thomas Huxley]], ''On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind'' (1870).</ref> and the [[Capoid race]], in some cases the Mongolian (East Asian) and American collapsed into a single group.

==Racial anthropology (1850–1930)==
{{Main|Scientific racism}}
{{further|Biological anthropology}}

[[File:Racist Depiction of The Types of Races of Men.jpg|thumb|200 px|Engraving depicting what was considered "The Types of Races of Men" by the author]]

Among the 19th century naturalists who defined the field were [[Georges Cuvier]], [[James Cowles Pritchard]], [[Louis Agassiz]], [[Charles Pickering (naturalist)|Charles Pickering]] (''Races of Man and Their Geographical Distribution'', 1848). Cuvier enumerated three races, Pritchard seven, Agassiz twelve, and Pickering eleven.

The 19th century saw the introduction of anthropological techniques such as [[anthropometrics]], invented by Francis Galton and [[Alphonse Bertillon]]. They measured the shapes and sizes of skulls and related the results to group differences in intelligence or other attributes.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Lieberman|first=Leonard|title=How 'Caucasoids' Got Such Big Crania and Why They Shrank: From Morton to Rushton|journal=Current Anthropology|volume=42|issue=1|year=2001|pages=69–95|doi=10.1086/318434|jstor=10.1086/318434|pmid=14992214|s2cid=224794908}}</ref>

Stefan Kuhl wrote that the [[eugenics]] movement rejected the racial and national hypotheses of [[Arthur Gobineau]] and his writing ''[[An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races]]''. According to Kuhl, the eugenicists believed that nations were political and cultural constructs, not race constructs, because nations were the result of race mixtures.<ref>{{cite book | publisher=Springer | title=For the Betterment of the Race: The Rise and Fall of the International Movement for Eugenics and Racial Hygiene | author=Stefan Kühl| date=2013 | isbn=9781137286123 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4T4hAQAAQBAJ&q=An+Essay+on+the+Inequality+of+the+Human+Races+eugenics&pg=PA51 | access-date=June 9, 2016 | quote=Eugenicist were clear that nations were political and cultural constructs, not race constructs. In this, they consciously turned away from the race theory of Arthur de Gobineau, who in an essay on the "Inequality of the Human Races", had claimed that a people's cultural assets and its ability to develop historically were determined by a people's "race substance". According to Gobineau, every "nation" is therefore the result of racially determined abilities and lack of abilities.}}</ref> [[Georges Vacher de Lapouge]]'s "anthroposociology", asserted as self-evident the biological inferiority of particular groups (Kevles 1985). In many parts of the world, the idea of race became a way of rigidly dividing groups by culture as well as by physical appearances (Hannaford 1996). Campaigns of oppression and [[genocide]] were often motivated by supposed racial differences.<ref>{{cite book | publisher=University of California Press | title=The Deadly Ethnic Riot | author=L. D. Horowitz| date=2001 | isbn=9780520224476 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UwA1aaB2WGgC }}</ref>

During the late 19th century and early 20th century, the tension between some who believed in hierarchy and innate superiority, and others who believed in human equality, was at a paramount. The former continued to exacerbate the belief that certain races were innately inferior by examining their shortcomings, namely by examining and testing intelligence between groups. Some scientists claimed that there was a [[biological]] determinant of race by evaluating one's [[genes]] and [[DNA]]. Different methods of eugenics, the study and practice of human selective breeding often with a race as a primary concentration, was still widely accepted in Britain, Germany, and the United States.<ref name="Sarich, Vincent 2004">Sarich, Vincent, and Miele Frank. Race: the Reality of Human Differences. Boulder: Westview Press, 2004.</ref> On the other hand, many scientists understood race as a [[Social constructionism|social construct]]. They believed that the [[phenotypical]] expression of an individual were determined by one's genes that are inherited through reproduction but there were certain social constructs, such as [[culture]], [[environment (biophysical)|environment]], and [[language]] that were primary in shaping behavioral characteristics. Some advocated that race 'should centre not on what race explains about society, but rather on the questions of who, why and with what effect social significance is attached to racial attributes that are constructed in particular political and socio-economic contexts', and thus, addressing the "folk" or "mythological representations" of race.<ref>Black, Les, and Solomos John. Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader. New York: Routledge, 2000.</ref>

===Louis Agassiz's racial definitions===
After [[Louis Agassiz]] (1807–1873) traveled to the United States, he became a prolific writer in what has been later termed the genre of scientific racism. Agassiz was specifically a believer and advocate in [[polygenism]], that races came from separate origins (specifically separate creations), were endowed with unequal attributes, and could be classified into specific climatic zones, in the same way he felt other animals and plants could be classified.

These included Western American Temperate (the indigenous peoples west of the Rockies); Eastern American Temperate (east of the Rockies); Tropical Asiatic (south of the Himalayas); Temperate Asiatic (east of the Urals and north of the Himalayas); South American Temperate (South America); New Holland (Australia); Arctic (Alaska and Arctic Canada); Cape of Good Hope (South Africa); and American Tropical (Central America and the West Indies).

Agassiz denied that species originated in single pairs, whether at a single location or at many. He argued instead multiple individuals in each species were created at the same time and then distributed throughout the continents where God meant for them to dwell. His lectures on polygenism were popular among the slaveholders in the southern United States, for many this opinion legitimized the belief in a lower standard of the Black slave.

His stance in this case was considered to be quite radical in its time, because it went against the more orthodox and standard reading of the Bible in his time which implied all human stock descended from a single couple (Adam and Eve), and in his defense Agassiz often used what now sounds like a very "modern" argument about the need for independence between science and religion; though Agassiz, unlike many polygeneticists, maintained his religious beliefs and was not anti-Biblical in general.

In the context of ethnology and anthropology of the mid-19th century, Agassiz's polygenetic views became explicitly seen as opposing Darwin's views on race, which sought to show the common origin of all human races and the superficiality of racial differences. Darwin's second book on evolution, ''The Descent of Man'', features extensive argumentation addressing the single origin of the races, at times explicitly opposing Agassiz's theories. {{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}

===Arthur de Gobineau===
[[File:Arthur de Gobineau.jpg|thumb|Gobineau in 1876]]
[[Arthur de Gobineau]] (1816–1882) was a successful diplomat for the [[Second French Empire]]. Initially he was posted to [[Iran|Persia]], before working in [[Brazil]] and other countries. He came to believe that race created culture, arguing that distinctions between the three "black", "white", and "yellow" races were natural barriers, and that "[[Miscegenation|race-mixing]]" breaks those barriers down and leads to chaos. He classified the populations of the [[Middle East]], [[Central Asia]], the [[Indian subcontinent]], [[North Africa]], and [[southern France]] as being racially mixed.

Gobineau also believed that the white race was superior to all others. He thought it corresponded to the ancient Indo-European culture, also known as "[[Aryan]]". Gobineau originally wrote that the white race's miscegenation was inevitable. He attributed much of the economic turmoils in France to the pollution of races. Later on in his life, he altered his opinion to believe that the white race could be saved.

To Gobineau, the development of empires was ultimately destructive to the "superior races" that created them, since they led to the mixing of distinct races. This he saw as a degenerative process.

According to his definitions, the people of [[Spain]], most of [[France]], most of [[Germany]], southern and western Iran as well as [[Switzerland]], [[Austria]], [[Northern Italy]], and a large part of [[British Isles|Britain]], consisted of a degenerative race that arose from miscegenation. Also according to him, the whole population of [[North India]] consisted of a yellow race. {{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}

===Thomas Huxley's racial definitions===
[[File:Huxley races.png|thumb|300px|[[Thomas Henry Huxley|Huxley]]'s map of racial categories from ''On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind'' (1870): {{legend|#a14308|1: [[Bushmen]]}}
{{legend|#682b05|2: [[Negro]]es}}
{{legend|#060606|3: [[Negrito]]es}}
{{legend|#ffcccc|4: Melanochroi (including [[Hamitic|Hamites]] and [[Moors]])}}
{{legend|#328a85|5: [[Australoid]]s}}
{{legend|#ff0000|6: Xanthochroi}}
{{legend|#efc417|7: [[Pacific Islander|Polynesians]]}}
{{legend|#c6520a|8: [[Mongoloid]]s A}}
{{legend|#cb780a|8: Mongoloids B}}
{{legend|#cb970a|8: Mongoloids C}}
{{legend|#f9b90d|9: [[Eskimo|Esquimaux]]}}
Huxley states: 'It is to the Xanthochroi and Melanochroi, taken together, that the absurd denomination of "Caucasian" is usually applied'.<ref>[[Thomas Henry Huxley|Huxley, T. H.]] [http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/SM3/GeoDis.html "On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind"] (1870) ''Journal of the Ethnological Society of London''</ref> He also indicates that he has omitted certain areas with complex ethnic compositions that do not fit into his racial paradigm, including much of the Horn of Africa and the Indian subcontinent.<ref name=Huxley1873/> Huxley's Melanochroi eventually comprised various other dark Caucasoid populations, including the Hamites and Moors.<ref name="JWGregory"/>]]

[[Thomas Huxley]] (1825–1895) wrote one paper, "On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind" (1870), in which he proposed a distinction within the human species ('races'), and their distribution across the earth. He also acknowledged that certain geographical areas with more complex ethnic compositions, including much of the Horn of Africa and the India subcontinent, did not fit into his racial paradigm. As such, he noted that: "I have purposely omitted such people as the Abyssinians and the Hindoos, who there is every reason to believe result from the intermixture of distinct stocks."<ref name=Huxley1873>{{cite book|last=Huxley|first=Thomas|title=Critiques and Addresses by Thomas Henry Huxley, LL.D., F.R.S|year=1873|publisher=Macmillan and Company|page=153|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V8cArGfZfNgC&pg=PA153}}</ref> By the late nineteenth century, Huxley's Xanthochroi group had been redefined as the [[Nordic race]], whereas his Melanochroi became the [[Mediterranean race]]. His Melanochroi thus eventually also comprised various other dark Caucasoid populations, including the [[Hamitic|Hamites]] (e.g. Berbers, Somalis, northern Sudanese, ancient Egyptians) and [[Moors]].<ref name="JWGregory">{{cite book|last1=Gregory|first1=John Walter|title=Race as a Political Factor|date=1931|publisher=Watts & Company|page=19|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uU8oAAAAMAAJ|access-date=8 May 2016}}</ref>

Huxley's paper was rejected by the [[Royal Society]], and this became one of the many theories to be advanced and dropped by the early exponents of [[evolution]].

Despite rejection by Huxley and the science community, the paper is sometimes cited in support of racialism.<ref>{{cite book | last=Di Gregorio | first=Mario A | title=T.H. Huxley's place in natural science | year=1984 |publisher=Yale University Press | location=New Haven | url=https://archive.org/details/thhuxleysplacein0000digr| url-access=registration |isbn=9780300030624}}</ref> Along with Darwin, Huxley was a monogenist, the belief that all humans are part of the same species, with morphological variations emerging out of an initial uniformity. (Stepan, p.&nbsp;44). This view contrasts with polygenism, the theory that each race is actually a separate species with separate sites of origin.

Despite Huxley's monogenism and his abolitionism on ethical grounds, Huxley assumed a hierarchy of innate abilities, a stance evinced in papers such as "Emancipation Black and White" and his most famous paper, "Evolution and Ethics".

In the former, he writes that the "highest places in the hierarchy of civilization will assuredly not be within the reach of our dusky cousins, though it is by no means necessary that they should be restricted to the lowest". (Stepan, p.&nbsp;79–80).
{{Further|Man's Place in Nature}}

===Charles Darwin and race===
{{More citations needed section|date=October 2024}}
Though [[Charles Darwin]]'s evolutionary theory was set forth in 1859 upon publication of ''On the Origin of Species'', this work was largely absent of explicit reference to Darwin's theory applied to man. This application by Darwin would not become explicit until 1871 with the publication of his second great book on evolution, ''[[The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex]]''.

Darwin's publication of this book occurred within the heated debates between advocates of monogeny, who held that all races came from a common ancestor, and advocates of polygeny, who held that the races were separately created. Darwin, who had come from a family with strong abolitionist ties, had experienced and was disturbed by cultures of slavery during his voyage on the Beagle years earlier. Noted Darwin biographers [[Adrian Desmond]] and [[James Moore (biographer)|James Moore]] argue that Darwin's writings on evolution were not only influenced by his abolitionist tendencies, but also his belief that non-white races were equal in regard to their intellectual capacity as white races, a belief which had been strongly disputed by scientists such as Morton, Agassiz and Broca, all noted polygenists.

By the late 1860s, however, Darwin's theory of evolution had been thought to be compatible with the polygenist thesis (Stepan 1982). Darwin thus used ''Descent of Man'' to disprove the polygenist thesis and end the debate between polygeny and monogeny once and for all. Darwin also used it to disprove other hypotheses about racial difference that had persisted since the time of ancient Greece, for example, that differences in skin color and body constitution occurred because of differences of geography and climate.

Darwin concluded, for example, that the biological similarities between the different races were "too great" for the polygenist thesis to be plausible. He also used the idea of races to argue for the continuity between humans and animals, noting that it would be highly implausible that man should, by mere accident acquire characteristics shared by many apes.

Darwin sought to demonstrate that the physical characteristics that were being used to define race for centuries (i.e. skin color and facial features) were superficial and had no utility for survival. Because, according to Darwin, any characteristic that did not have survival value could not have been naturally selected, he devised another hypothesis for the development and persistence of these characteristics. The mechanism Darwin developed is known as [[sexual selection]].

Though the idea of sexual selection had appeared in earlier works by Darwin, it was not until the late 1860s when it received full consideration (Stepan 1982). Furthermore, it was not until 1914 that sexual selection received serious consideration as a racial theory by naturalist thinkers.

Darwin defined sexual selection as the "struggle between individuals of one sex, generally the males, for the possession of the other sex". Sexual selection consisted of two types for Darwin: 1.) The physical struggle for a mate, and 2.) The preference for some color or another, typically by females of a given species. Darwin asserted that the differing human races (insofar as race was conceived phenotypically) had arbitrary standards of ideal beauty, and that these standards reflected important physical characteristics sought in mates.

Broadly speaking, Darwin's attitudes of what race was and how it developed in the human species are attributable to two assertions, 1.) That all human beings, regardless of race, share a single, common ancestor, and 2.) Phenotypic racial differences are superficially selected, and have no survival value.{{citation needed|date=April 2016}} Given these two beliefs, some believe Darwin to have established monogenism as the dominant paradigm for racial ancestry, and to have defeated the scientific racism practiced by Morton, Knott, Agassiz et al., as well as notions that there existed a natural racial hierarchy that reflected inborn differences and measures of value between the different human races.
Nevertheless, he stated: "The various races, when carefully compared and measured, differ much from each other – as in the texture of hair, the relative proportions of all parts of the body, the capacity of the lungs, the form and capacity of the skull, and even the convolutions of the brain. But it would be an endless task to specify the numerous points of difference. The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatization and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotion, but partly in their intellectual faculties." (''The Descent of Man'', chapter VII).

In ''The Descent of Man'', Darwin noted the great difficulty naturalists had in trying to decide how many "races" there actually were:
<blockquote>Man has been studied more carefully than any other animal, and yet there is the greatest possible diversity amongst capable judges whether he should be classed as a single species or race, or as two (Virey), as three (Jacquinot), as four (Kant), five (Blumenbach), six (Buffon), seven (Hunter), eight (Agassiz), eleven (Pickering), fifteen (Bory St. Vincent), sixteen (Desmoulins), twenty-two (Morton), sixty (Crawfurd), or as sixty-three, according to Burke. This diversity of judgment does not prove that the races ought not to be ranked as species, but it shews that they graduate into each other, and that it is hardly possible to discover clear distinctive characters between them.

</blockquote>

==Decline of racial studies after 1930==
Several social and political developments that occurred at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century led to the transformation in the discourse of race. Three movements that historians have considered are: the coming of mass [[democracy]], the age of [[Imperialism|imperialist expansion]], and the impact of [[Nazism]].<ref name="Malik, Kenan 1996">Malik, Kenan. The Meaning of Race. New York: New York University Press, 1996.</ref> More than any other, the violence of [[Nazi]] rule, the [[Holocaust]], and [[World War II]] transformed the whole discussion of race. Nazism made an argument for [[Herrenvolk|racial superiority]] based on a biological basis. This led to the idea that people could be divided into discrete groups and based on the divisions, there would be severe, tortuous, and often fatal consequences. The exposition of [[Nazi racial theories]], which culminated in the [[Final Solution]], created a moral revolution against racism.<ref name="Malik, Kenan 1996"/> In 1945, and as a response to the genocide by Nazism, [[UNESCO]] was formed. In 1950, it released a statement saying that there was no biological determinant or basis for race.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://en.unesco.org/courier/july-august-1950 |title=Fallacies of racism exposed: UNESCO publishes Declaration by world's scientists |website=UNESCO.org |date=July–August 1950|access-date=July 10, 2022}}</ref>

Consequently, studies of human variation focused more on actual patterns of variation and evolutionary patterns among populations and less about classification. Some scientists point to three discoveries. Firstly, African populations exhibit greater genetic diversity and less linkage disequilibrium because of their long history. Secondly, genetic similarity is directly correlated with geographic proximity. Lastly, some loci reflect selection in response to environmental gradients. Therefore, some argue, human racial groups do not appear to be distinct ethnic groups.<ref>Koenig, Barbara A., Lee Sandra Soo-Jin, and [[Sarah S. Richardson|Richardson Sarah S.]] Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age. Piscataway: Rutgers University Press, 2008.</ref>

===Franz Boas===
[[Franz Boas]] (1858–1942) was a [[German American]] anthropologist and has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". Professor of anthropology at Columbia University from 1899, Boas made significant contributions within [[anthropology]], more specifically, [[physical anthropology]], [[linguistics]], [[archaeology]], and [[cultural anthropology]]. His work put an emphasis on cultural and environmental effects on people to explain their development into adulthood and evaluated them in concert with human biology and evolution. This encouraged academics to break away from static taxonomical classifications of race. It is said that before Boas, anthropology was the study of race, and after Boas, anthropology was the study of culture.

The 20th-century criticism of racial anthropology was significantly based on Boas and his school. Beginning in 1920, he strongly favoured the influence of social environment over heritability. As a reaction to the rise of [[Nazi Germany]] and its prominent espousing of [[Nazism and race|racist ideologies]] in the 1930s, there was an outpouring of popular works by scientists criticizing the use of race to justify the politics of "superiority" and "inferiority". An influential work in this regard was the publication of ''We Europeans: A Survey of "Racial" Problems'' by [[Julian Huxley]] and [[A. C. Haddon]] in 1935, which sought to show that [[population genetics]] allowed for only a highly limited definition of race at best. Another popular work during this period, "The Races of Mankind" by [[Ruth Benedict]] and Gene Weltfish, argued that though there were some extreme racial differences, they were primarily superficial, and in any case did not justify political action. {{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}

===Julian Huxley and A. C. Haddon===
[[Sir Julian Sorell Huxley]] (1887–1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist, internationalist, and the first director of UNESCO. After returning to England from a tour of the United States in 1924, Huxley wrote a series of articles for the ''Spectator'' which he expressed his belief in the drastic differences between "negros" and "whites".<ref name="Barkan, Elazar 1992">Barkan, Elazar. The Retreat of Scientific Racism. New York: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1992.</ref> He believed that the color of "blood" – percentage of 'white' and 'black' blood – that a person had would determine a person's mental capacity, moral probity, and social behavior. "Blood" also determined how individuals should be treated by society. He was a proponent of racial inequality and segregation.<ref name="Malik, Kenan 1996"/>

By 1930, Huxley's ideas on race and inherited intellectual capacity of human groups became more liberal. By the mid-1930s, Huxley was considered one of the leading [[Anti-racism|antiracists]] and committed much of his time and efforts into publicizing the fight against Nazism.<ref name="Barkan, Elazar 1992"/>

[[Alfred Cort Haddon]] (1855–1940) was a British anthropologist and ethnologist.

In 1935, Huxley and A. C. Haddon wrote, ''We Europeans'', which greatly popularized the struggle against racial science and attacked the Nazis' abuse of science to promote their racial theories. Although they argued that 'any biological arrangement of the types of European man is still largely a subjective process', they proposed that humankind could be divided up into "major" and "minor subspecies". They believed that races were a classification based on [[hereditary]] traits but should not by nature be used to condemn or deem inferior to another group. Like most of their peers, they continued to maintain a distinction between the social meaning of race and the scientific study of race. From a scientific standpoint, they were willing to accept that concepts of superiority and inferiority did not exist, but from a social standpoint, they continued to believe that racial differences were significant. For example, they argued that genetic differences between groups were functionally important for certain jobs or tasks.<ref name="Malik, Kenan 1996"/>

===Carleton Coon===
In 1939, Coon published ''[[The Races of Europe (Coon)|The Races of Europe]]'', in which he concluded:<ref name=racesofeurope>[http://www.snpa.nordish.net/racesofeurope.htm The Races of Europe by Carleton Coon 1939] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20050225133107/http://www.snpa.nordish.net/racesofeurope.htm |date=2005-02-25 }} (Hosted by the Society for Nordish Physical Anthropology)</ref>

#The Caucasian race is of dual origin consisting of Upper Paleolithic (mixture of ''[[Homo sapiens]]'' and ''[[Neanderthals]]'') types and [[Mediterranean race|Mediterranean]] (purely ''Homo sapiens'') types.
#The Upper Paleolithic peoples are the truly indigenous peoples of Europe.
#Mediterraneans invaded Europe in large numbers during the Neolithic period and settled there.
#The racial situation in Europe today may be explained as a mixture of Upper Paleolithic survivors and Mediterraneans.
#When reduced Upper Paleolithic survivors and Mediterraneans mix, then occurs the process of [[dinaric race|dinarization]], which produces a hybrid with non-intermediate features.
#The Caucasian race encompasses the regions of [[Europe]], [[Central Asia]], [[South Asia]], the [[Near East]], [[North Africa]], and the [[Horn of Africa]].
#The Nordic race is part of the Mediterranean racial stock, being a mixture of Corded and Danubian Mediterraneans.

In 1962, Coon also published ''The Origin of Races'', wherein he offered a definitive statement of the [[polygenist]] view. He also argued that human fossils could be assigned a date, a race, and an evolutionary grade. Coon divided humanity into five races and believed that each race had ascended the ladder of human evolution at different rates.<ref name="Sarich, Vincent 2004"/>

Since Coon followed the traditional methods of physical anthropology, relying on morphological characteristics, and not on the emerging [[genetics]] to classify humans, the debate over ''Origin of Races'' has been "viewed as the last gasp of an outdated scientific methodology that was soon to be supplanted."<ref>{{cite journal| last = Jackson Jr.| first = John| title="In Ways Unacademical": The Reception of Carleton S. Coon's The Origin of Races| journal = Journal of the History of Biology| volume = 34| issue = 2| pages = 247–285|date=June 2001| doi = 10.1023/A:1010366015968 | jstor=4331661| s2cid = 86739986}}</ref>{{rp|249}}<ref>For a criticism of Coon's relying on typology alone, see also: {{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/first/gill.html |title=Does Race Exist? A proponent's perspective |first=George W. |last=Gill |publisher=Pbs.org|year=2000}}</ref> In today's anthropology, Coon's theories on races are considered [[pseudoscientific]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sachs Collopy|first=Peter|date=2015|title=Race Relationships: Collegiality and Demarcation in Physical Anthropology|journal=Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences|language=en|volume=51|issue=3|pages=237–260|doi=10.1002/jhbs.21728|pmid=25950769}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Spickard |first1=Paul |author-link=Paul Spickard |title=Race in Mind: Critical Essays |date=2016 |publisher=University of Notre Dame Press |isbn=978-0-268-04148-9 |chapter=The Return of Scientific Racism? DNA Ancestry Testing, Race, and the New Eugenics Movement |chapter-url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvpj76k0.11 |doi=10.2307/j.ctvpj76k0.11|jstor=j.ctvpj76k0.11|page=157|quote=For more than four decades beginning in the late 1930s, the Harvard anthropologist Carleton Coon wrote a series of big books for an ever shrinking audience in which he pushed a pseudoscientific racial angle of analysis.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Selcer |first1=Perrin |title=Beyond the Cephalic Index: Negotiating Politics to Produce UNESCO's Scientific Statements on Race |journal=Current Anthropology |date=2012 |volume=53 |issue=S5|doi=10.1086/662290 |s2cid=146652143 |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/662290|page=S180|quote=Most disturbingly for liberal anthropologists, the new generation of racist “pseudoscience” threatened to return to mainstream respectability in 1962 with the publication of Carleton Coon's ''The Origin of Races'' (Coon 1962).|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Loewen |first1=James W. |author-link=James W. Loewen |title=Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism |date=2005 |publisher=New Press |location=New York |isbn=9781565848870|page=462|quote=Carleton Coon, whose ''The Origin of Races'' [...] claimed that ''Homo sapiens'' evolved five different times, blacks last. Its poor reception by anthropologists, followed by evidence from archaeology and paleontology that mankind evolved once, and in Africa, finally put an end to such pseudoscience.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Regal|first=Brian|author-link=Brian Regal|title=Searching for Sasquatch|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2011|isbn=978-0-230-11829-4|series=Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology|location=New York|chapter=The Life of Grover Krantz|doi=10.1057/9780230118294_5|chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230118294_5|pages=93–94|quote=Carleton Coon fully embraced typology as a way to determine the basis of racial and ethnic difference [...] Unfortunately for him, American anthropology increasingly equated typology with pseudoscience.}}</ref>

===Ashley Montagu===
[[Ashley Montagu|Montague Francis Ashley Montagu]] (1905–1999) was a British-American anthropologist. In 1942, he made a strong effort to have the word "race" replaced with "[[ethnic group]]" by publishing his book, ''Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race''. He was also selected to draft the initial 1950 UNESCO Statement on Race.<ref name="Sarich, Vincent 2004"/>

Montagu would later publish ''An Introduction to Physical Anthropology'', a comprehensive treatise on human diversity. In doing so, he sought to provide a firmer scientific framework through which to discuss biological variation among populations.<ref name=Montagu>{{cite book|last=Ashley|first=Montagu|title=An Introduction to Physical Anthropology - Second Edition|date=1951|publisher=Charles C. Thomas Publisher|pages=302–12|url=https://archive.org/download/introductiontoph033240mbp/introductiontoph033240mbp.pdf}}</ref>

=== UNESCO ===
{{Main|The Race Question}}
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ([[UNESCO]]) was established November 16, 1945, in the wake of the [[Nazi racial theories|racially motivated]] [[The Holocaust|Genocide of Jews]] by the [[Third Reich]].<ref name="MyUser_Https:_April_30_2025c">{{cite journal
 | last = Sack| first =  Richard 
 | date = Feb 1986
 | title = Unesco: From Inherent Contradictions to Open Crisis
 | journal = Comparative Education Review
 | volume = 30 | issue = 1 | pages = 112–119
 | jstor = 1188272 
}}</ref> The UNESCO 1945 constitution declared that, "The great and terrible war which now has ended was made possible by the denial of the democratic principles of the dignity, equality and mutual respect of men, and by the propagation, in their place, through ignorance and prejudice, of the doctrine of the inequality of men and races."<ref>{{cite web |date=24 July 2024 |orig-date=16 November 1945 |title=UNESCO Constitution |url=https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/constitution |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20240630180537/https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/constitution |archive-date=30 June 2024 |access-date=30 April 2025 |website=UNESCO}}</ref> Between 1950 and 1978 the UNESCO issued five statements on the issue of race.

The first of the UNESCO statements on race was "[[The Race Question]]" and was issued on July 18, 1950. The statement included both a rejection of a scientific basis for theories of racial hierarchies and a moral [[anti-racism|condemnation of racism]]. Its first statement suggested in particular to "drop the term 'race' altogether and speak of '[[ethnic groups]]{{'"}}, which proved to be controversial.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5DLrgG_MflgC&dq=UNESCO+race+statement+context&pg=PA96 |title=Race and Other Misadventures: Essays in Honor of Ashley Montagu in His Ninetieth Year |last2= |first2= |date= |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=1996 |isbn=978-1-882289-35-6 |pages=96–105 |language=en |chapter=Barkan, Elazar. The Politics Of The Science Of Race - Ashley Montagu and UNESCO's Anti-racist Declarations |chapter-url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Race_and_Other_Misadventures/5DLrgG_MflgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=UNESCO+race+statement+context&pg=PA96&printsec=frontcover}}</ref> The 1950 statement was most concerned with dispelling the notion of race as species. It did not reject the idea of a biological basis to racial categories.<ref>{{cite book |author=Banton |first=Michael |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Encyclopedia_of_Race_Ethnicity_and_Socie/YMUola6pDnkC |title=Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity and Society |publisher=Sage |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-4129-2694-2 |editor=Schaefer |editor-first=Richard T. |pages=1096, 1098 |chapter=Race, Unesco statements on |oclc=790271861 |quote=The statement was primarily concerned with the use of race in the sense of species, but in referring to "the biological fact of race", it touched on the use of the word to signify inheritance. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819000000/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Encyclopedia_of_Race_Ethnicity_and_Socie/YMUola6pDnkC |archive-date=2020-08-19}} [https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofra0001unse_o0i9 Alt URL]</ref> Instead it defined the concept of race in terms as a population defined by certain anatomical and physiological characteristics as being divergent from other populations; it gives the examples of the [[Caucasian race|Caucasian]], [[Mongoloid race|Mongoloid]] and [[Negroid race|Negroid]] races. The statements maintain that there are no "pure races" and that biological variability was as great within any race as between races. It argued that there is no scientific basis for believing that there are any innate differences in intellectual, psychological or emotional potential among races.

The statement was drafted by [[Ashley Montagu]] and endorsed by some of the leading researchers of the time, in the fields of [[psychology]], [[biology]], [[cultural anthropology]] and [[ethnology]]. The statement was endorsed by [[Ernest Beaglehole]], [[Juan Comas]], L. A. Costa Pinto, [[Franklin Frazier]], sociologist specialised in race relations studies, [[Morris Ginsberg]], founding chairperson of the [[British Sociological Association]], [[Humayun Kabir (Bengal politician)|Humayun Kabir]], writer, philosopher and Education Minister of India twice, [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]], one of the founders of [[ethnology]] and leading theorist of [[structural anthropology]], and [[Ashley Montagu]], anthropologist and author of ''[[Joseph Merrick|The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity]]'', who was the [[wikt:rapporteur|rapporteur]].

As a result of a lack of representation of [[Physical anthropology|physical anthropologists]] in the drafting committee the 1950 publication was criticized by biologists and physical anthropologists for confusing the biological and social senses of race and for going beyond the scientific facts, although there was a general agreement about the statement's conclusions.<ref>{{cite book|author=Banton. Michael|chapter=Race, Unesco statements on |editor=Schaefer, Richard T.|year=2008|title=Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity and Society|publisher=Sage|isbn=978-1-4129-2694-2|quote=Because of last-minute withdrawals, biological science was not adequately represented in the committee. Many biologists, though not rejecting the statement's general spirit or its main conclusions, believed that it went beyond the scientific facts (e.g., in the reference to “drives towards co-operation”) and that it confused the biological and social uses of the word race.|page=1096 or 1098}}</ref>

UNESCO assembled a new committee with better representation of the physical sciences and drafted a new statement released in 1951. The 1951 statement, published as "The Race Concept", focused on race as a biological heuristic that could serve as the basis for evolutionary studies of human populations. It considered the existing races to be the result of such evolutionary processes throughout human history. It also maintained that "equality of opportunity and equality in law in no way depend, as ethical principles, upon the assertion that human beings are in fact equal in endowment."

As the 1950 and 1951 statements generated considerable attention, in 1964 a new commission was formed to draft a third statement titled "Proposals on the Biological Aspects of Race". According to [[Michael Banton]] (2008), this statement broke more clearly with the notion of race-as-species than the previous two statements, declaring that almost any genetically differentiated population could be defined as a race.<ref name="Banton. Michael 2008 1096">{{cite book|author=Banton. Michael|chapter=Race, Unesco statements on |editor=Schaefer, Richard T.|year=2008|title=Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity and Society|publisher=Sage |isbn=978-1-4129-2694-2|page=1096 or 1099}}</ref> The statement stated that "Different classifications of mankind into major stocks, and of those into more restricted categories (races, which are groups of populations, or single populations) have been proposed on the basis of hereditary physical traits. Nearly all classifications recognise at least three major stocks" and "There is no national, religious, geographic, linguistic or cultural group which constitutes a race ipso facto; the concept of race is purely biological." It concluded with "The biological data given above stand in open contradiction to the tenets of racism. Racist theories can in no way pretend to have any scientific foundation."

The 1950, 1951, and 1964 statements focused on dispelling the scientific foundations for racism but did not consider other factors contributing to racism. For this reason, in 1967 a new committee was assembled, including representatives of the social sciences (sociologists, lawyers, ethnographers and geneticists), to draft a statement "covering the social, ethical and philosophical aspects of the problem". This statement was the first to provide a definition of [[racism]]: "antisocial beliefs and acts which are based upon the fallacy that discriminatory intergroup relations are justifiable on biological grounds". The statement continued to denounce the many negative social effects of racism.<ref name="Banton. Michael 2008 1096"/>

In 1978, the general assembly of the UNESCO considered the four previous statements and published a collective "Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.unesco.org/webworld/peace_library/UNESCO/HRIGHTS/107-116.HTM|title=DECLARATION ON RACE AND RACIAL PREJUDICE, 1978|website=www.unesco.org}}</ref> This declaration included [[apartheid]] as one of the examples of racism, an inclusion which caused [[South Africa]] to step out of the assembly. It declared that a number of public policies and laws needed to be implemented. It stated that:
* "All human beings belong to a single species."
**"All peoples of the world possess equal faculties for attaining the highest level in intellectual, technical, social, economic, cultural and political development."
**"The differences between the achievements of the different peoples are entirely attributable to geographical, historical, political, economic, social and cultural factors."
**"Any theory which involves the claim that racial or ethnic groups are inherently superior or inferior, thus implying that some would be entitled to dominate and eliminate others, presumed to be inferior, or which bases value judgements on racial differentiation, has no scientific foundation and is contrary to the moral and ethical principles of humanity."

===Criticism of racial studies (1930s–1980s)===
{{cleanup section|reason=more or less random compilation of comments from the period (as opposed to a coherent summary of the academic development during these five decades)|date=July 2015}}
{{further|Anti-racism#Revival in the United States}}

In 1930, [[Endre Sík]] (1891–1978), a Hungarian communist intellectual, authored ''Rasovaja problema i marksizm'' (''The Racial Problem and Marxism''), a groundbreaking attempt to formulate a Marxist constructivist theory of race. Published in the USSR, the book predates similar works by [[Oliver C. Cox|Oliver Cox]] and [[W. E. B. Du Bois]] and sought to explain racial categories not as biological facts but as socio-economic constructs shaped by imperialism and capitalist exploitation. Sík distinguished between biological race, the conventional classifications that people impose on the humanity, and “social races,” arguing that racial identities are historically produced through systems of domination and economic exploitation. Sík's views were marginalized within the [[Communist International]], which at the time promoted the “Black Belt” thesis—that [[African Americans]] constituted a nation with a right to self-determination. Sík opposed this view, arguing instead for class-based unity and integration.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Serhiienko |first=Stanislav |date=2024 |title=Endre Sík und das Rassenproblem im sowjetischen Diskurs. Zur Geschichte eines frühen „konstruktivistischen“ Rassenbegriffs |url=https://budrich-journals.de/index.php/peripherie/article/view/45637 |journal=PERIPHERIE – Politik • Ökonomie • Kultur |language=de |doi=10.3224/peripherie.v44i3.03 |issn=2366-4185|url-access=subscription |doi-access=free }}</ref>

[[Claude Lévi-Strauss]]' ''Race and History'' ([[UNESCO]], 1952) was another critique of the biological "race" notion, arguing in favor of [[cultural relativism]]. Lévi-Strauss argued that when comparatively ranking cultures, the culture of the person performing the ranking would naturally decide which values and ideas are prioritized. Lévi-Strauss compared this to [[special relativity]], suggesting that each observer's frame of reference, their culture, appeared to them to be stationary, while the others' cultures appeared to be moving only in relation to an [[Non-inertial reference frame|outside frame of reference]]. Lévi-Strauss cautioned against focusing on specific differences, such as which race was first to develop a specific technology in isolation, as he believed this would create a simplistic and warped view of humanity. Lévi-Strauss instead advocated looking at why these developments were made in context, and what problems they addressed.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lévi-Strauss |first1=Claude |title=Race and history |date=1952 |publisher=UNESCO |location=Paris |pages=[https://archive.org/details/racehistory00levi/page/24 24]–29 |url=https://archive.org/details/racehistory00levi |access-date=15 February 2019|oclc=1006456331}}</ref>

In his 1984 article in ''[[Essence (magazine)|Essence]]'' magazine, "On Being 'White' ... and Other Lies", [[James Baldwin]] reads the history of [[racialization]] in America as both figuratively and literally violent, remarking that race only exists as a social construction within a network of force relations: 
{{blockquote|"America became white&nbsp;— the people who, as they claim, 'settled' the country became white&nbsp;— because of the necessity of denying the Black presence, and justifying the Black subjugation. No community can be based on such a principle&nbsp;— or, in other words, no community can be established on so genocidal a lie. White men from Norway, for example, where they were Norwegians&nbsp;— became white: by slaughtering the cattle, poisoning the well, torching the houses, massacring Native Americans, raping Black women.... Because they are white, they cannot allow themselves to be tormented by the suspicion that all men are brothers."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Baldwin |first1=James |author-link1=James Baldwin |title=On Being White... And Other Lies |url=http://www.cwsworkshop.org/pdfs/CARC/Family_Herstories/2_On_Being_White.PDF |access-date=14 February 2019 |work=[[Essence (magazine)|Essence]] |date=April 1984}}</ref>}}

=== Refutation by modern genetics ===
The impossibility of drawing clearly defined boundaries between the areas of the supposed racial groups had been observed by Blumenbach<ref>{{cite book |author=Johann Friedrich Blumenbach|title=Handbuch der Naturgeschichte|page=62|year=1797|quote=die Neger, die sich dann in die Habessinier, Mauren ꝛc. verlieren, so wie jede andre Menschen-Varietät mit ihren benachbarten Völkerschaften gleichsam zusammen fließt.|trans-quote=the negroes, who then lose their characteristics into the Abyssinians, the Moors etc., the same way in which every other variety of man flows together with the neighbouring ethnic groups, so to speak|url=https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/book/view/blumenbach_naturgeschichte_1797?p=84|access-date=2020-06-06}}</ref> and later by [[Charles Darwin]].<ref>"It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant... they graduate into each other, and.. it is hardly possible to discover clear distinctive characters between them... As it is improbable that the numerous and unimportant points of resemblance between the several races of man in bodily structure and mental faculties (I do not here refer to similar customs) should all have been independently acquired, they must have been inherited from progenitors who had these same characters.", Charles Darwin, [http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F937.1&viewtype=text&pageseq=238 ''The Descent of Man'' p. 225 onwards]</ref>

With the availability of new data due to the development of modern genetics, the concept of races in a biological sense has become untenable. Problems of the concept include: It "is not useful or necessary in research",<ref name="Lieberman1997">{{cite web|author=Lieberman, L.|author-link=Leonard Lieberman|year=1997|title="Race" 1997 and 2001: A Race Odyssey|publisher=[[American Anthropological Association]]|page=2|url=http://s3.amazonaws.com/rdcms-aaa/files/production/public/FileDownloads/pdfs/cmtes/commissions/aec/upload/A_Race_Odyssey.pdf|access-date=2021-04-18|archive-date=2021-01-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210110075142/http://s3.amazonaws.com/rdcms-aaa/files/production/public/FileDownloads/pdfs/cmtes/commissions/aec/upload/A_Race_Odyssey.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> scientists are not able to agree on the definition of a certain proposed race, and they do not even agree on the number of races, with some proponents of the concept suggesting 300 or even more "races".<ref name="Lieberman1997" /> Also, data are not reconcilable with the concept of a treelike evolution<ref>"Indeed, if a species  has  sufficient  gene  flow,  there  can  be  no  evolutionary tree  of  populations, because there are no population splits...", Templeton, A. (2016). EVOLUTION AND NOTIONS OF HUMAN RACE. In Losos J. & Lenski R. (Eds.), ''How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society'' (p. 355). Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press. {{doi|10.2307/j.ctv7h0s6j.26}}.</ref> nor with the concept of "biologically discrete, isolated, or static" populations.<ref name="AAPARace" />

In 2019, the [[American Association of Physical Anthropologists]] stated: "The belief in 'races' as natural aspects of human biology, and the structures of inequality (racism) that emerge from such beliefs, are among the most damaging elements in the human experience both today and in the past."<ref name="AAPARace"/>

After discussing various criteria used in biology to define subspecies or races, [[Alan R. Templeton]] concludes in 2016: "[T]he answer to the question whether races exist in humans is clear and unambiguous: no."<ref name="Templeton2016">Templeton, A. (2016). EVOLUTION AND NOTIONS OF HUMAN RACE. In Losos J. & Lenski R. (Eds.), ''How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society'' (pp. 346–361). Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press. {{doi|10.2307/j.ctv7h0s6j.26}}. That this view reflects the consensus among American anthropologists is stated in: {{cite journal|last2=Yu|first2=Joon-Ho|last3=Ifekwunigwe|first3=Jayne O.|last4=Harrell|first4=Tanya M.|last5=Bamshad|first5=Michael J.|last6=Royal|first6=Charmaine D.|date=February 2017|title=Anthropologists' views on race, ancestry, and genetics|journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology|volume=162|issue=2|pages=318–327|doi=10.1002/ajpa.23120|pmid=27874171|last1=Wagner|first1=Jennifer K.|pmc=5299519}} See also: {{cite web|author=American Association of Physical Anthropologists|author-link=American Association of Physical Anthropologists|title=AAPA Statement on Race and Racism |website=American Association of Physical Anthropologists|access-date=19 June 2020 |date=27 March 2019 |url=https://physanth.org/about/position-statements/aapa-statement-race-and-racism-2019/}}</ref>{{rp|360}}

==See also==
* [[Cephalometry]]
* [[Biological anthropology]]
* [[History of anthropometry]]
* [[Phrenology]]
* [[Eugenics]]
* [[One-drop rule]]
* [[Racial hygiene]]
* [[Heritability]]
* [[Biological determinism]]
* [[Nature versus nurture]]
* [[Race and intelligence]]

== References ==

=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

=== Sources ===
* Alexander, Nathan G. (2019). ''Race in a Godless World: Atheism, Race, and Civilization, 1850-1914''. New York/Manchester: New York University Press/Manchester University Press. {{ISBN|978-1526142375}}
* Augstein, Hannah Franziska, ed. ''Race: The Origins of an Idea, 1760–1850''. Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1996. {{ISBN|1-85506-454-5}}
* Banton, Michael P. (1977) ''The idea of race''. Westview Press, Boulder
* Banton, Michael P. ''Racial Theories''. 2nd ed. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. {{ISBN|0-521-33456-X}}
* Barkan, Elazar. ''The Retreat of Scientific Racism''. New York: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1992.
* Bowcock A. M., Kidd JR, Mountain JL, Hebert JM, Carotenuto L, Kidd KK, Cavalli-Sforza LL "Drift, admixture, and selection in human evolution: a study with DNA polymorphisms". ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' 1991; 88: 3: 839–43
* Bowcock, A. M., "High resolution of human evolutionary trees with polymorphic microsatellites", 1994, ''Nature'', 368: pp.&nbsp;455–57
* Brace, C. Loring. ''"Race" is a Four-Letter Word: the Genesis of the Concept''. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
* Dain, Bruce R. ''A Hideous Monster of the Mind: American Race Theory in the Early Republic''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2002. {{ISBN|0-674-00946-0}}
* Foucault, Michel. ''Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège De France, 1975–76''. Trans. David Macey. Eds. Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana. City: Picador, 2003. {{ISBN|0-312-20318-7}}
* Gossett, Thomas F. ''Race: The History of an Idea in America''. 1963. Ed. and with a foreword by [[Shelley Fisher Fishkin]] and Arnold Rampersad. Oxford, England: Oxford UP, 1997. {{ISBN|0-19-509778-5}}
* Gould, Stephen Jay. ''The Mismeasure of Man''. Rev. and expand ed. New York: Norton, 1996. {{ISBN|0-393-03972-2}}
* Hannaford, Ivan. ''Race: The History of an Idea in the West''. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1996. {{ISBN|0-8018-5222-6}}
* Harding, Sandra. ''The "Racial" Economy of Science: Toward a Democratic Future''. Indiana University Press, 1993.
* [http://dmr.bsu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/ConspectusH&CISOPTR=1257&REC=1 Hoover, Dwight W. "Paradigm Shift: The Concept of Race in the 1920s and the 1930s". ''Conspectus of History'' 1.7 (1981): 82–100.]
* Koenig, Barbara A., Lee Sandra Soo-Jin, and Richardson Sarah S. ''Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age''. Piscataway: Rutgers University Press, 2008.
* Lewis, B. ''Race and slavery in the Middle East''. Oxford University Press, New York, 1990.
* Lieberman, L. "How 'Caucasoids' got such big crania and why they shrank: from Morton to Rushton". ''Current Anthropology'' 42:69–95, 2001.
* Malik, Kenan. ''The Meaning of Race''. New York: New York University Press, 1996.
* Meltzer, M. ''Slavery: a world history'', rev ed. DaCapo Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1993.
* Rick Kittles, and S. O. Y. Keita, "Interpreting African Genetic Diversity", ''African Archaeological Review'', Vol. 16, No. 2, 1999, pp.&nbsp;1–5
* Sarich, Vincent, and Miele Frank. ''Race: the Reality of Human Differences''. Boulder: Westview Press, 2004.
* Shipman, Pat. ''The Evolution of Racism: Human Differences and the Use and Abuse of Science''. 1994. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2002. {{ISBN|0-674-00862-6}}
* Smedley, Audrey. ''Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview''. Boulder: Westview Press, 1999.
* Snowden F. M. ''Before color prejudice: the ancient view of blacks''. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1983.
* Stanton W. ''The leopard's spots: scientific attitudes toward race in America, 1815–1859''. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1960.
* [[Nancy Stepan|Stepan, Nancy]]. ''The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain, 1800–1960''. Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1982 {{ISBN|0-208-01972-3}}
* Takaki, R.  ''A different mirror: a history of multicultural America''. Little, Brown, Boston, 1993.
* von Vacano, Diego. ''The Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity and Latin American/Hispanic Political Thought''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

==External links==
{{Commons category|Historical definitions of race}}

===Dictionary definitions===
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060715170955/http://machaut.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/WEBSTER.sh?word=Race Definition of "race" in the 1913 ''Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary''] provided by the ARTFL Project, University of Chicago.
*[[wikt:race#Etymology 2|Definition of "race" in the Wiktionary]]

===Web sites devoted to the history of "race"===
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20110303215850/http://www.racesci.org/ The RaceSci Website] preserved at the [[Internet Archive]]: website devoted to providing information for scholars and students of the history of "race" in science, medicine, and technology, maintained at the Department of History at the [[University of Toronto]] and includes subject bibliographies as well as an annotated link list.
*https://www.racepowerofanillusion.org/ three-part television documentary ''Race – The Power of an Illusion''] with background reading and teaching resources.

{{Ethnicity}}
{{Historical definitions of race}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Historical Definitions Of Race}}
[[Category:Historical definitions of race| ]]
[[Category:Social constructionism]]

[[fr:Race humaine#Historique de la notion]]