The Cultivation Of Whiteness Science, Health, And Racial Destiny In Australia

by Anderson, Warwick

• ISBN13: 9780465003051
• ISBN10: 0465003052
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-05-09
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

In nineteenth-century Australia, the main commentators on race and biological differences were doctors. But the medical profession entertained serious anxieties about the possibility of "racial denigration" of the white population in the new land, and medical and social scientists violated ethics and principles in pursuit of a more homogenized Australia.The Cultivation of Whitenessexamines the notions of "whiteness" and racism, and introduces a whole new framework for discussion of the development of medicine and science. Warwick Anderson provides the first full account of the shocking experimentation in the 1920s and '30s on Aboriginal people of the central deserts--the Australian equivalent of the infamous Tuskegee Experiment. Lucid and entertaining throughout, this pioneering historical survey of ideas will help to reshape debate on race, ethnicity, citizenship, and environment everywhere.

Author Biography

Warwick Anderson is Director of the History of Health Sciences Program and Vice Chair of the Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, as well as Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. Born in Australia, he now lives in San Francisco.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	1	(10)
THE TEMPERATE SOUTH
Antipodean Britons	11	(30)
A Cultivated Society	41	(32)
THE NORTHERN TROPICS
No Place for a White Man	73	(22)
The Making of the Tropical White Man	95	(44)
White Triumph in the Tropics?	139	(26)
Whitening the Nation	165	(26)
ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIA
From Deserts the Prophets Come	191	(34)
The Reproductive Frontier	225	(28)
Conclusion: Biology and Nation	253	(6)
Abbreviations	259	(2)
Notes	261	(68)
Bibliography of Works Cited	329	(52)
Index	381