Lighthouse

Superior: The Return of Race Science - (a Noor favourite)

- Angela Saini

( Paperback )

Buy£9.99

Bookseller Recommendation: In this climate of so many, from scientists to politicians announcing their support for racist politics and policies, we finally have a book that faces these opinions head on. Well-written, nuanced and deeply researched, this book shows how pervasive these ideas have been, and how science has historically been manipulated in order to legitimise colonialism, slavery, and racism. It will make you angry - but it will also prepare you for the next time someone spouts pseudo-scientific “race realism” and you have a chance to respond.

In Superior award-winning science writer Angela Saini explores the concept of race, both past and present. At its heart, race is the belief that we are born different, in character and intellectually, as well as in appearance. It’s the notion that as groups of people we have certain innate qualities that are not only visible, but which may also have helped define the passage of progress, of the success and failure of the nations our ancestors came from.

But modern science has moved on from these beliefs, finding reality to be much more complicated. Taking us from Darwin through the civil rights movement to 23andMe, Saini examines how deeply our present is influenced by our past, and the role that politics has so often had to play in our understanding of race. Superior is a rigorous, much needed examination of the insidious history and damaging consequences of race science – and the unfortunate reasons behind its apparent recent resurgence across the globe.