Race and equality : the nature of the debate

As social beings we all accept the need to make compromises in order to get along together. Sometimes, for the best of reasons, these compromises involve an element of self-deception. Today, an over-emphasis on human commonality is considered essential to any discussion of race and equality, but self-deception can have its drawbacks. In this book John Harvey argues that the disadvantages of pretending 'we are all the same under the skin' now outweigh the benefits and that science, and genetic science in particular, is increasingly undermining this worthy illusion. The time is right, he contends, for that illusion to be laid gently to rest.