An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853-1855) by Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau is a milestone of "scientific racism" (also called "racialism") and White supremacy, and is generally considered to be the first formulation of "biological racism", in contrast to Boulainvilliers' theory of races. In this essay, Gobineau makes 3 main divisions between races, based not on colour but on climatic conditions and geographic location. He conceived the "Aryan race" as the most powerful of all.

Early anthropological studies in the nineteenth century were influenced by the way the biological science (Humboldt) had classified the species. De Gobineaus ideas found a new interest at the end of the nineteenth century in German speaking areas and elsewhere, becoming the canon of racist theories, such as the one exposed by H.S. Chamberlain, a British citizen who naturalized himself as a German because of his admiration for the Germanic "race".

Influence

Josiah Clark Nott translated Arthur de Gobineau's "Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines" into English. Nott later became a leader of the polygenist movement, suggesting against all evidence that Whites and Blacks were two distinct species. Gobineau's work has been continuously republished, most recently by contemporary White nationalist groups such as Noontide Press.

Bibliography

• Gobineau, Arthur (Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau) and Adrian Collins. ^* 1983. The Inequality of Human Races. Second edition, reprint. Torrance, Calif.: Noontide Press.
• Pierre-André Taguieff (various books on racialism)
• Georges Chatterton-Hill, "Gobineau, Nietzsche, Wagner" in The Nineteenth Century and After, 1913, pp. 1088-1101.

Ethnography | Racism | Pseudoscience | History of France | Colonialism

Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines