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Well into the 1980s, Strasbourg, France, was the site of a curious and little-noted experiment: Ungemach, a garden city dating back to the high days of eugenic experimentation that offered luxury living to couples who were deemed biologically fit and committed to contractual childbearing targets. Supported by public authorities, Ungemach aimed to accelerate human evolution by increasing procreation among eugenically selected parents. In this fascinating history, Paul-André Rosental gives an account of Ungemach's origins and its perplexing longevity. He casts a troubling light on the influence that eugenics continues to exert-even decades after being discredited as a pseudoscience-in realms as diverse as developmental psychology, postwar policymaking, and liberal-democratic ideals of personal fulfilment.
List of contents
Abbreviations
Introduction Foreword Theodore M. Porter PART I : THE INTELLECTUAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY OF A HUMAN GARDEN (1880S-1980S) Chapter 1. The Acceptance of a Eugenic Experimentation
Chapter 2. The Stone Poem of the Alsatian Ibsen
Chapter 3. Guinea Pigs or Citizens? From the Reign of the "Diktator" to the Public Policy (1923-1984)
PART II: EUGENICS, BIOPOLITICS, AND WELFARE IN A TRANSATLANTIC PERSPECTIVE (1914-1968) Chapter 4. From Micro- to Macro-History: Ungemach Gardens and the Survival of Eugenics in France after 1945
Chapter 5. Stamping out Racism and Reforming Eugenics: a Transatlantic History of Qualitative Demography
Chapter 6. Qualitative Demography, Reform Eugenics, and Social Policies in 1950s France
PART III: EUGENICS AND DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: A NEGLECTED LEGACY Chapter 7. Eugenics as a Moral Theory (1): The Theory of Human Capital
Chapter 8. Eugenics as a Moral Theory (2): At the Sources of "Personal Development"
Conclusion Epilogue
Archival Sources
Bibliography
Appendix: Works by Abel Ruffenach, pseudonym of Alfred Dachert
About the author
Paul-André Rosental is a professor at Sciences Po in Paris. His research focuses on the field dubbed “biopolitics” by Michel Foucault, where the studies of society, demographics, and health intersect.
