When published in 1981, The Mismeasure of Man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits.

And yet the idea of innate limits--of biology as destiny--dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined by Stephen Jay Gould. In this edition Dr. Gould has written a substantial new introduction telling how and why he wrote the book and tracing the subsequent history of the controversy on innateness right through The Bell Curve. Further, he has added five essays on questions of The Bell Curve in particular and on race, racism, and biological determinism in general. These additions strengthen the book's claim to be, as Leo J. Kamin of Princeton University has said, "a major contribution toward deflating pseudo-biological 'explanations' of our present social woes."

Author: Stephen Jay Gould
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 06/17/1996
Pages: 448
Weight: 0.88lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.48w x 0.89d
ISBN: 9780393314250
Revised, Expand Edition


Award: 1981 National Book Critics Circle Award Winner - General Nonfiction


Review Citation(s):
Discover 03/01/2008 pg. 18
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2008 pg. 8

About the Author
Gould, Stephen Jay: - Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) was the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Geology at Harvard University. He published over twenty books, received the National Book and National Book Critics Circle Awards, and a MacArthur Fellowship.