Measuring Manhood: Race and the Science of Masculinity, 18301934

(Paperback)

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From the "gay gene" to the "female brain" and African American students' insufficient "hereditary background" for higher education, arguments about a biological basis for human difference have reemerged in the twenty-first century. "Measuring Manhood "shows where they got their start.Melissa N. Stein analyzes how race became the purview of science

Reviews

"Measuring Manhood is the book weve been hoping for. For two generations, historians have talked about the ways that race, class, and gender are interlocking and co-operational. Carefully and thoughtfully, Melissa N. Stein gathers these plots and lays out a story of intersecting interests and ideologies: a story of knowledge gone mad that is deeply resonant in our time."Matthew Pratt Guterl, Brown University

"Smartly conceptualized and engagingly written."Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

"Measuring Manhood is well-written and complexly argued. It will be a useful text for courses in the history of medicine, gender, and sexuality studies; American history and science and technology studies. It provides an example of how to do inter-

sectional analysis."Men & Masculinities

"A masterful work on the way racial theory, gender and science came together in the long nineteenth century."Social History of Medicine

"A noble effort to reveal the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality in the history of American science."American Historical Review

"Smartly conceptualized and engagingly written."Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

"A well-written narrative, Measuring Manhood is a welcome contribution to the histories of science and medicine, race, and sex and sexuality as well to the interdisciplinary fields of American studies and gender studies."Journal of American History

"Anyone interested in how American science used studies of masculinity to aggravate social fears about race would do well to start with Measuring Manhood."Journal of the History of Sexuality

"Melissa Stein offers a meticulously researched history of biological essentialism. Her explicitly intersectional approach is a timely contribution to our understanding of how race and gender together informed the emerging sciences of ethnology, biology, and medicine from the nineteenth to the early twentieth century."African American Review

"Measuring Manhood is a sobering reflection on the fallacies of objective research and the role science has played in shaping social and political life. In this present era of advanced genetic research and considerable sociopolitical turmoil, this is a cautionary tale."New Genetics and Society

"Measuring Manhood is an excellent study of the development of the science of masculinity and its roots in race science in the United States during the long nineteenth century."Journal of American Ethnic History

Author Bio

Melissa N. Stein is assistant professor of gender and womens studies at the University of Kentucky.