Enlightenment Biopolitics: A History of Race, Eugenics, and the Making of Citizens (The Life of Ideas)

A wide-ranging history tracing the birth of biopolitics in Enlightenment thought and its aftermath. In Enlightenment Biopolitics , historian William Max Nelson pursues the ambitious task of tracing the context in which biopolitical thought emerged and circulated. He locates that context in the Enlightenment when emancipatory ideals sat alongside the horrors of colonialism, slavery, and race-based discrimination. In fact, these did not just coexist, Nelson argues; they were actually mutually constitutive of Enlightenment ideals. In this book, Nelson focuses on Enlightenment-era visions of eugenics (including proposals to establish programs of selective breeding), forms of penal slavery, and spurious biological arguments about the supposed inferiority of particular groups. The Enlightenment, he shows, was rife with efforts to shape, harness, and "organize" the minds and especially the bodies of subjects and citizens. In his reading of the birth of biopolitics and its transformations, Nelson examines the shocking conceptual and practical connections between inclusion and exclusion, equality and inequality, rights and race, and the supposed "improvement of the human species" and practices of dehumanization. After a period of some eclipse, the study of intellectual history has enjoyed a broad resurgence in recent years. The Life of Ideas contributes to this revitalization through the study of ideas as they are produced, disseminated, received, and practiced in different historical contexts. The series aims to embed ideas-those that endured, and those once persuasive but now forgotten-in rich and readable cultural histories. Books in this series draw on the latest methods and theories of intellectual history while being written with elegance and élan for a broad audience of readers. . . . . Contents List of Illustrations Introduction. Becoming Biopolitics Chapter One. Organizing the Swarm of Being Chapter Two. Enlightenment Eugenics Chapter Three. Making Men in the Colonies Chapter Four. In Society, but Not of It Chapter Five. New Citizens, New Slaves Chapter Six. Making the New Man Chapter Seven. An Evolving Constellation Conclusion Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Notes Index