Racial Hygiene

“Proctor’s carefully argued book not only forces us to reassess the dynamics of Nazism but also challenges pervasive notions about the political neutrality and objective value of science and the moral innocence of scientists… [A] provocative study.”—Mary Nolan, The New York Times Book Review

“It is a deeply disturbing book, concerned as it is with how fine scientific minds, many of which were at least formally committed to the practice of healing, not only ‘sold themselves to the devil’ but, through their own theoretical musings and prejudice-tinctured social concerns, anticipated his arrival. It is an at times passionate exegesis on how ‘value-free’ science is a disingenuous contradiction in terms and, more important, on how people who believe in so chimerical an enterprise could and can contribute to social pathology… The lessons for our own age are baldly obvious.”—Robert A. Pois, Science

“A chilling indictment of the pre-war German scientific community which legitimized Nazi racial theories.”—Jewish Chronicle

“A valuable, disturbing treatise on the darkest chapter of modern medicine.”—Kirkus Reviews

“The best that has been written… A well-crafted, seminal work.”—Burton C. Einspruch, M.D., Journal of the American Medical Association