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BookBrowse Reviews Better for All the World: The history of eugenics in the USA - 'Eye-opening . . . Disturbing . . . Highly readable.' - Hardcover

Better for All the World
The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America's Quest for Racial Purity
by Harry Bruinius
Paperback, Apr 2007,
416 pages.
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From the book jacket: In Better for All the World, Harry Bruinius charts the little-known history of eugenics in America—a movement that began in the early twentieth century and resulted in the forced sterilization of more than 65,000 Americans right up into the 1970s.

Comment: In 1927 the Supreme Court upheld Virginia's right to forcibly sterilize "feeble-minded individuals" in Buck v. Bell. Speaking for the majority, Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes made the following statement: "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can...
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Interesting Links
  • The Eugenics Archive - it may take you a few minutes to work out how best to navigate this site but once you do the 2,500 images stored make for interesting browsing.
  • The histories of eugenics and compulsory...
This review was originally published in February 2006, and has been updated for the April 2007 paperback release. Click here to go to this issue.
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