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Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics Hardcover – 3 Feb. 2022
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* FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF HOW TO ARGUE WITH A RACIST *
Throughout history, people have sought to improve society by reducing suffering, eliminating disease or enhancing desirable qualities in their children. But this wish goes hand in hand with the desire to impose control over who can marry, who can procreate and who is permitted to live. In the Victorian era, in the shadow of Darwin's ideas about evolution, a new full-blooded attempt to impose control over our unruly biology began to grow in the clubs, salons and offices of the powerful. It was enshrined in a political movement that bastardised science, and for sixty years enjoyed bipartisan and huge popular support.
Eugenics was vigorously embraced in dozens of countries. It was also a cornerstone of Nazi ideology, and forged a path that led directly to the gates of Auschwitz. But the underlying ideas are not merely historical. The legacy of eugenics persists in our language and literature, from the words 'moron' and 'imbecile' to the themes of some of our greatest works of culture. Today, with new gene editing techniques, very real conversations are happening - including in the heart of British government - about tinkering with the DNA of our unborn children, to make them smarter, fitter, stronger.
CONTROL tells the story of attempts by the powerful throughout history to dictate reproduction and regulate the interface of breeding and society. It is an urgently needed examination that unpicks one of the defining and most destructive ideas of the twentieth century. To know this history is to inoculate ourselves against its being repeated.
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherW&N
- Publication date3 Feb. 2022
- Dimensions19.4 x 2.6 x 27.4 cm
- ISBN-101474622380
- ISBN-13978-1474622387
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From the Publisher
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Review
A short, sharp, illuminating overview of the science, politics, uses and abuses of human gene editing -- Tim Adams ― OBSERVER, Book of the Week
Weighty and serious but accessible and perfectly pitched. The scholarship is astounding -- ALICE ROBERTS
A clear-sighted look at the past and present dangers of eugenics. Rutherford tells [the story] with great concision and with clarity, both scientific and moral. [He] condenses tricky concepts into smart and often witty prose, combining erudition with humility . . . honest, informed and humane -- Philip Ball ― FINANCIAL TIMES
Breathtakingly brilliant and dark, a popular science book that doesn't talk down to you. ― Alex Preston in the i paper
CONTROL is persuasive, sensible and ultimately reassuring, but it is not complacent . . . To know history is "to inoculate ourselves against its being repeated", Rutherford argues. From that perspective, this book is a shot worth having -- Katy Guest ― GUARDIAN, Book of the Day
Genetics has attracted brilliant, visionary scientists. It has attracted racists and charlatans. CONTROL skilfully weaves together these two strands of the discipline's history -- HELEN LEWIS
There are many involving arguments, historical surprises, detailed case studies and amiable jokes in this book, and you'll finish it with renewed respect for, and interest in, what real scientists do -- Sam Leith ― SPECTATOR
[Rutherford's] scientific demolition of the eugenic project is brilliantly illuminating and compelling. His book will be indispensable for anyone who wants to assess the wild claims and counter-claims surrounding new genetic technologies -- John Gray ― NEW STATESMAN
Discussions around the idea of population control are increasingly resurfacing. CONTROL's strength is that it provides not only much-needed guidance for these conversations by reminding us of the horrors of the past, but also uses scientific evidence to dismantle the viability of these ideas -- Layal Liverpool ― NEW SCIENTIST
Rutherford's swift, well-written account of these fascinating scientific and moral issues is well worth a read -- Emma Duncan ― THE TIMES, Book of the Week
Rutherford sharply undermines the old trope that science is detached from politics, showing that to stand on the shoulders of giants is no barrier to recognising their flaws and fetishes. A vital warning from both history and science of the quiet horrors that can ensue if society becomes overconfident in its ability to 'improve' the population. Smart and surprisingly entertaining -- CAROLINE DODDS PENNOCK
Rutherford presents a profoundly sensible take on the complexities of history . . . an important book ― MAIL ON SUNDAY
Fizzy and pugnacious . . . brilliant . . . A fierce and funny broadside against eugenics and its admirers ― SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
Rutherford takes us on a journey that encompasses both the history of eugenics and its current-day practice . . . an
insightful and compelling study
Few are as well-qualified to perform the necessary demolition [of eugenics] as Adam Rutherford -- Dominic Lawson ― DAILY MAIL, Book of the Week
Insightful and compelling -- Sharron Logan ― PRESS ASSOCIATION review syndicated across regional press
An important book . . . It might be true, as Rutherford claims, that "eugenics is a busted flush, a pseudoscience that cannot deliver on its promise", but this book is a reminder of why we must remain vigilant ― THE TABLET
An insightful and compelling look into the story of eugenics, showing how its legacies are still prevalent in language and literature today. It's a hard one to put down . . . Rutherford makes it easy to digest ― DAILY RECORD
Book Description
From the Back Cover
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : W&N; 1st edition (3 Feb. 2022)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1474622380
- ISBN-13 : 978-1474622387
- Dimensions : 19.4 x 2.6 x 27.4 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 106,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 25 in Medical Genetics
- 100 in Genetics in Popular Science
- 339 in History of Science (Books)
- Customer reviews:
About the author

Hello, I'm Dr Adam Rutherford, a science writer and broadcaster. I studied genetics at University College London, and during my PhD on the developing eye at the Institute of Child Health at Great Ormond St Hospital, I was part of a team that identified the first genetic cause of a form of childhood blindness. Since then, I worked as an editor at the journal Nature, and have written several books; my first book, CREATION, on the origin of life and synthetic biology, was shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Prize.
On radio, I present BBC Radio 4’s weekly programme Inside Science, and with Dr. Hannah Fry, the Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry. I've also written and presented documentaries on subjects ranging from the history of sex, the evolution of morality, to the MMR-Autism scandal.
I've written and presented several award winning television documentaries, including The Cell (2009), The Gene Code (2011), the Beauty of Anatomy (2014), and Playing God, on the rise of synthetic biology for the BBC’s long-running science series Horizon. I’ve also appeared on programmes including James Cameron’s The Story of Science Fiction (2018), University Challenge (2016).
I’ve worked on a number of films as a scientific consultant too, including Annihilation (dir. Alex Garland, 2018), Ex Machina (dir. Alex Garland, 2015), Life (dir. Daniel Espinosa, 2016)
Bjork: Biophilia Live (dir. Peter Strickland, 2014), Kingsmen: The Secret Service (dir. Matthew Vaughan, 2014).
adamrutherford.com | @AdamRutherford
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Customers find the book's writing clear and easy to read. They appreciate the useful historical overview of eugenics provided with interesting examples and humor. The book is described as an engaging read that provokes thought, and considered one of the best non-fiction books of the year.
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Customers find the book well-written and easy to read. They appreciate the clear coverage of the subject matter.
"...Author is a scientist and science communicator. Writing is excellent, using interesting examples and humour. Why read it..." Read more
"...Whilst Levine is more authoritative, better researched, and clearly written, Rutherford’s book is deeply disappointing on so many levels that it..." Read more
"As always with Adam Rutherford his narrative is easy to read and well researched" Read more
"...Well, yes, and on that aspect it scores quite high. It's a well written book which covers that part of its subject with clarity and precision...." Read more
Customers find the book provides a useful historical overview of eugenics and its thinking. They say it's reading for scientists, historians, and policy makers. The writing is excellent, using interesting examples and humor.
"...Deserves to be widely read and worth reading for the scientist, historian, policy maker etc...." Read more
"...The book contains plenty of real world examples of how genes affect us and how people have approached our newly aquired ability for gene..." Read more
"..." is a worthwhile read, and I particularly liked the coverage of the history of eugenics...." Read more
"...state of the modern science of genetics is also presented as an interesting and relatively simple -- although you need to pay some close attention..." Read more
Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They say it's a good read for scientists, historians, and policy makers. Readers also mention it's one of the best non-fiction books of the year and brilliant.
"...Highly recommended. Brilliant. Deserves to be widely read and worth reading for the scientist, historian, policy maker etc...." Read more
"Another great book by Adam Rutherford, provoking many thoughts about the persistence of the Eugenics myth" Read more
""Control" is a worthwhile read, and I particularly liked the coverage of the history of eugenics...." Read more
"A good read, concisely charting the recent past and present course of a thoroughly anti-human idea...." Read more
Top reviews from United Kingdom
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- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 February 2022Kindle version is 253 pages, in two parts, followed by References etc.
Author is a scientist and science communicator.
Writing is excellent, using interesting examples and humour.
Why read it
Eugenics began as an idea to improve people but desirable characteristics, and by implication the opposite undesirable ones, are socially constructed.
Nature versus nature explained from a genetic standpoint. And why it was doomed to fail using single genetic causes as case studies.
Explains the concept of eugenics control and the Nazi's Final Solution but the book is much wider.
You realise how pervasive its ideas were in Western Society and shockingly how Germany adopted/built on the US approach to eugenics in the 1930's. And how aspects were still practised well after World War II.
You learn how it drove racist ideology in US, Canada etc by grading intelligence, disability and defining the undesirable.
You realise it is an idea starting with the Greeks and are introduced to key individuals such as Galton and Fisher.
CRISPR is introduced and you realise gene editing/editing of DNA has never been easier. And this raises many concerns for the future.
The Chinese scientist He Jiankui is discussed in detail and the ethics he violated.
The history and development of Eugenics is covered brillliantly.
You could also read the Final Solution (Cesarani) and Travellers in the Third Reich (Julia Boyd) to understand the rise of the Nazi's.
Highly recommended. Brilliant.
Deserves to be widely read and worth reading for the scientist, historian, policy maker etc.
Probably one of the best non-fiction books of the year.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 February 2022Dr Rutherford provides a useful historical overview of eugenics and the thinking behind it. He covers both the science and the politics, placing all of the different aspects in their social context. The science behind eugenics, particularly in more modern times with the development of molecular genetics, is not always simple for the layman but Dr Rutherford successfully clarifies the science. He also includes useful discussion regarding the ethical questions which are arising as our knowledge about genetics and our technological ability to manipulate genes increases. The book contains plenty of real world examples of how genes affect us and how people have approached our newly aquired ability for gene manipulation and how they are looking to the future - not always, it seems, with feet firmly planted on the ground.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 February 2022Another great book by Adam Rutherford, provoking many thoughts about the persistence of the Eugenics myth
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 May 2022Searching on Amazon for a clearly written and structured introduction to British eugenics for non-specialists, I purchased Control together with Phillipa Levine’s Eugenics: A Very Short Introduction. Whilst Levine is more authoritative, better researched, and clearly written, Rutherford’s book is deeply disappointing on so many levels that it warrants only three stars, if that. Demonstration of how toxic eugenics was, and remains, means understanding and engaging with all of eugenics, not just with selected aspects, and this is where Control misses the mark. Although set against the backdrop of eugenics, its actual subjects are the social responsibility for the uses and interpretation of genetics by its practitioners (p. 159), and the role of University College London, UCL, both past and present in British eugenics (157-8). Even here it disappoints.
Unfortunately, given the current culture wars, other Amazon reviewers may conclude mischievously that those who are not totally and uncritically approving of all the contents of this book can only themselves be closet eugenicists, something that is categorically refuted here. Though eugenics and the racism associated with it are repugnant and impossible to defend, a critique of this book is a very different matter.
Three potential strengths are implied by the book’s cover. Unusually under the same jacket, selected aspects of the history of British eugenics before about 1950 are mentioned together with subsequent contemporary genetic reproductive interventions. As both a lecturer in genetics at University College London and a science journalist, Dr Rutherford might appear a suitable guide through the labyrinth of previous writings on eugenics and the social policies that were advanced in its name. Finally, mention is made of how characteristics are transmitted from parents to their children, together with the extent to which geneticists can realistically intervene and their ethical justification for doing so. Yet in all three areas it seems flawed.
Eugenics carried at least three aspects - as a purported ‘science’, as a ‘secular religion’ and as vehicle for the discussion of ‘political biology’, yet only the first of these is recognised and partially scrutinised. Certainly, as the book claims, eugenics could never work in terms of contemporary genetics. Central to any clarification is an explanation of epigenetics, crudely the complex interaction of genetically encoded information and the environment, but weirdly this is not mentioned specifically. In 2022 we know that eugenics was unviable as science, but obviously that was not known clearly to eugenicists in the past. The unanswered historical question is why on earth people at the time believed in it as ‘science’, not just that we do not. Control does not recognise that the ‘scientific’ evidence that eugenicists publicised was largely a prop for their fundamental beliefs and ideology. Francis Galton, the founder of the creed, intended it as a ‘secular religion’ where eugenic convictions and ideology determined the scientific questions that could be framed and the social policies desired. And religious belief is largely impervious to science either in the past or now - few religious believers in so called ‘Intelligent Design’ by the Almighty as a scientific theory of human origins seem convinced by Darwinian evolution. More than just purported science and religion, eugenics provided a form of 'political biology', a vehicle for discussion of the anxieties of its proponents such as perceived ‘national decline’ or the higher fertility of the working class, regardless of whether these were justified or not. These complications and their interconnection are barely or lucidly recognised here.
If the account of eugenics is flawed, so too is the treatment of the social responsibility of geneticists and the role of UCL, both past and present in British eugenics. The status quo in terms of social responsibility is presented as relatively satisfactory, well policed by existing legislation and by geneticist themselves, despite consideration of a few well publicised cases of ‘rogue’ geneticists abusing the system. Questionably, genetics is presented as entirely free from eugenic ideology (p159), regardless of wider public concerns of the ‘New Eugenics’ in the genetic reproductive technology discussed. Contrastingly genetics is presented seemingly as a neutral ‘technology’, somehow largely free of wider social and political contentions within which it works. Yet this idea of the scientist as ‘a brain in a vat’, isolated from any wider social context, has long been discredited elsewhere.
UCL, where the author teaches genetics, has struggled recently to come to terms with its own eugenic history. Amongst others, Dr Rutherford contributed evidence in 2020 to UCL’s official Committee of Enquiry into its eugenic history but there is limited discussion of this or precisely why, as claimed, many dissenting committee members refused to sign it reflecting claimed historical and scientific errors. Crucially UCL’s eugenic past is not confined to Francis Galton himself or Karl Pearson, the subjects of the enquiry and this book. Charles Spearman and Cyril Burt devoted their professional lives at UCL over more than 40 years to the ‘scientific’ enhancement of Galton’s eugenics by their work on inherited intelligence and its claimed structure. Central to their work was the disputable notion that the rudimentary tests of intelligence of the time provided a technology for measuring otherwise unseen inherited ability, and subsequently the ranking of individuals in terms of their eugenic social worth. As noted at the time, this was ‘psychology in the service of eugenics’, yet Spearman is not mentioned in the references, and Burt only in a footnote on studies of twins. Debatably, much of this work at UCL on intelligence was foundational for subsequent claims in the USA for the alleged 'racial inferiority’ of Black people. These omissions are therefore perplexing.
Production and presentation are also problematic here. There are few signs of expert peer review, the text is not closely tied to the evidence on which it draws, and its many ‘howlers’ should have been excised. The 65 ‘references’ provided are not closely associated with the text and arguably it fails to guide you adequately to any further reading. Typically, the direct quotes from historical sources are not cited, so it is impossible to check their veracity or to follow them up. At least 59 other people seem to have contributed, yet their precise involvements are often unclear, though some of these have subsequently commented on or reviewed the book positively. Control entertains, but it does not inform adequately.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 February 2022As always with Adam Rutherford his narrative is easy to read and well researched
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 December 2024"Control" is a worthwhile read, and I particularly liked the coverage of the history of eugenics. It was interesting to learn how much the ideas around it had permeated society from the nineteenth century onwards.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 April 2023A good read, concisely charting the recent past and present course of a thoroughly anti-human idea. Whilst I cannot agree 100% with the author on everything, there’s enough here to be very useful to a layperson observing the contemporary world. Eugenic it’s have changed their spots but not their foolishness in believing they are capable of improving human beings through crass interventionism. It was certainly interesting to learn how many technical challenges are actually standing in the way of a successful embryonic intervention. It gives one hope for the future.
Top reviews from other countries
- Kindle CustomerBonnie HeinrichReviewed in the United States on 27 December 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Husband loves it!
This was an easy purchase for me to buy my husband who is a writer. Many of his subjects are based on topics from this book.
- KVReviewed in Canada on 20 December 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars This author is fantastic
If you like, listening to a philosophical mind, this is the book for you
- darwienReviewed in Germany on 6 May 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars the important book
Like physics vs metaphysics, all human ability to kognitive thinking drives us towards an abyss (be it religious dogma or atomic bomb). The new yin and yang seems to be human being vs trans humanism.
The outstanding quality of this book is to show how wrong we did until the present day and how little we actually know. With 80 percent of human genes exclusively in Subsahara Africa, should we not understand human first? Silicon Valley might assist, but real progress can only be achieved in Human Valley (Garden Eden, our cradle).
Lets forget neanderthal hybrids and their self-confidence for a moment. Human history will be human future, if there is any. And this will always happen where it has happened before and were it is constantly happening. We need human research by humans in human environment - with state of the art methodology and funding. This funding might come from neanderthal hybrids. BUT: Neanderthal hybrids - like most readers of this book? - might be the disturbing factor. So what?
Eugenics went terribly wrong, trans humanism will go wrong - most likely with more devastating consequences for our species. So let us save the planet environmentally first. Humans did not bring it to this unfortunate state, neanderthal hybrids did (does it need political correctness? Denisovan hybrids did not do much better lately.
Lets learn from human beings for our joint future (the neanderthal part is naturally phasing out).
Artificial intelligence and bio engineering? Let me but it freely in the words of Khalil Gibran (The Prophet): Our brain is a wonderful servant, but a grue full master. As not many people use their brain as a servant, what kind of monster will this master produce?
Thank you Mr Rutherford for your valuable work!
- gary colemanReviewed in the United States on 19 February 2024
4.0 out of 5 stars Food for thought… in fact, nearly a full course meal
A reasonably accessible exploration of a topic that simply won’t go away. Though I am left with some increase in my depressed mood as I consider the future, I’m pleased that Rutherford took the time to stir some of us from our slumber.
- mcewinReviewed in Canada on 12 December 2022
4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent, up-do-date history: lacks citations
I would recommend this excellent summary to anyone interested in the connections between the historical ideology of Eugenics (starting before anyone knew Jack Shinola about Genes) to the present day, when genetic testing companies push the idea of single-locus explanations for all manner of traits. My only objection (one star's worth) is an absence of in-line citations, which makes the book less useful as a resource in (for example) my History of Biology course. It is useful to contrast the academic origins and simple homespun racism of English-speaking eugenics, versus its implementation as a pseudo-medical policy under the Nazis, thence to technology-driven genocide.
NB: I have never found, and do not find here, any evidence that the people who knew better professionally (RA Fisher in particular) ever presented the simple population genetics of the practical impossibility of eliminating a rare recessive trait from a population. We easily demonstrate nowadays as a classroom exercise that most of the deleterious alleles occur unexpressed in the heterozygotes, and that d(q) goes slower & slower as q declines. Switching selection coefficients from strong to lethal again demonstrably makes little difference).