Understanding Race

Rob DeSalle · Ian Tattersall

Jul. 2022 · Cambridge University Press

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The human species is very young, but in a short time it has acquired some striking, if biologically superficial, variations across the planet. As this book shows, however, none of those biological variations can be understood in terms of discrete races, which do not actually exist as definable entities. Starting with a consideration of evolution and the mechanisms of diversification in nature, this book moves to an examination of attitudes to human variation throughout history, showing that it was only with the advent of slavery that considerations of human variation became politicized. It then embarks on a consideration of how racial classifications have been applied to genomic studies, demonstrating how individualized genomics is a much more effective approach to clinical treatments. It also shows how racial stratification does nothing to help us understand the phenomenon of human variation, at either the genomic or physical levels.

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Rob DeSalle is a Curator in the Sackler Institute for Comparative Biology and the Program for Microbial Research of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA. His research focuses on molecular systematics, microbial evolution, and genomics. He is the author of over 500 scientific papers and a wide range of books, from popular science titles to textbooks on genomics.

Ian Tattersall is Curator Emeritus in the Division of Anthropology of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA. His most recent research is on the emergence of modern human cognition. He is author of over 400 scientific papers, numerous books and is a prominent interpreter of palaeoanthropology to the public, and writes regularly for Natural History.