Board of Trustees, Boston University

Race by John R. BakerReview by: Wolf RoderThe International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1975), pp. 518-522Published by: Boston University African Studies CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/217180 .

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518 BOOK REVIEWS 518 BOOK REVIEWS

Islam, cautioning his readers not to take the paucity of "contributions" to the West as an index of "backwardness." He also raises the larger questions involved in the whole legacy approach: "the attempt to study the history of a pre-industrial economy by identifying its 'achieve- ments,' or by listing its 'influences' on other economies, tends in prac- tice to be rather unilluminating" (p. 210).

The material on frontiers is well executed but stands in some isola- tion from the main thrust of the book, since the influences and interac- tion of Islam with other cultures in Africa and Asia are not subjects pur- sued in the other chapters. Lewis emphasizes the flexibility of Islam in Africa and its close links with trade in what amounts to a condensed version of his introduction to Islam in Tropical Africa.2

DAVID ROBINSON

Yale University

2I.M. Lewis, ed., Islam in Tropical Africa (London, 1966), 1-96.

RACE. By John R. Baker. New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1974. Pp. xviii, 625. $15.00.

The idea that subspecies of mankind differ in fundamental ways in in- telligence and achievement seemingly went out with Hitler's final solu- tion. Scientific racism was dealt a death blow by Jaques Barzun's masterful and mocking Race: A Study in Superstition,1 laid to rest by scholarly agreement in the UNESCO statements on race, and finally buried at the independence of the colonial countries of the world. While cranks and pseudoscientists have remained with us, the past five years have seen a reexamination of genetic variables and racial differences in intelligence by serious scholars2 and their detractors.3 Interesting in this

1Jaques Barzun, Race: A Study in Modern Superstition (New York, 1937). 2Arthur R. Jensen, Environment, Heredity, and Intelligence, compiled from the Harvard

Educational Review, reprint series no. 2 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969); Jensen, Genetics and Education (London, 1972); Jensen, Educability and Group Differences (New York, 1973); Hans J. Eysenck, The I.Q. Argument (New York, 1971).

30tto Klineberg, "Negro-White Differences in Intelligence Test Performance," American Psychologist, 18 (1965), 198-203; David K. Cohen, "Does I.Q. Matter," Com-

mentafy, 53 (April, 1972), 51-59; Sandra Scarr-Salapatek, "Race, Social Class, and I.Q.," Science, 174 (December, 1971), 1285-1295.

Islam, cautioning his readers not to take the paucity of "contributions" to the West as an index of "backwardness." He also raises the larger questions involved in the whole legacy approach: "the attempt to study the history of a pre-industrial economy by identifying its 'achieve- ments,' or by listing its 'influences' on other economies, tends in prac- tice to be rather unilluminating" (p. 210).

The material on frontiers is well executed but stands in some isola- tion from the main thrust of the book, since the influences and interac- tion of Islam with other cultures in Africa and Asia are not subjects pur- sued in the other chapters. Lewis emphasizes the flexibility of Islam in Africa and its close links with trade in what amounts to a condensed version of his introduction to Islam in Tropical Africa.2

DAVID ROBINSON

Yale University

2I.M. Lewis, ed., Islam in Tropical Africa (London, 1966), 1-96.

RACE. By John R. Baker. New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1974. Pp. xviii, 625. $15.00.

The idea that subspecies of mankind differ in fundamental ways in in- telligence and achievement seemingly went out with Hitler's final solu- tion. Scientific racism was dealt a death blow by Jaques Barzun's masterful and mocking Race: A Study in Superstition,1 laid to rest by scholarly agreement in the UNESCO statements on race, and finally buried at the independence of the colonial countries of the world. While cranks and pseudoscientists have remained with us, the past five years have seen a reexamination of genetic variables and racial differences in intelligence by serious scholars2 and their detractors.3 Interesting in this

1Jaques Barzun, Race: A Study in Modern Superstition (New York, 1937). 2Arthur R. Jensen, Environment, Heredity, and Intelligence, compiled from the Harvard

Educational Review, reprint series no. 2 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969); Jensen, Genetics and Education (London, 1972); Jensen, Educability and Group Differences (New York, 1973); Hans J. Eysenck, The I.Q. Argument (New York, 1971).

30tto Klineberg, "Negro-White Differences in Intelligence Test Performance," American Psychologist, 18 (1965), 198-203; David K. Cohen, "Does I.Q. Matter," Com-

mentafy, 53 (April, 1972), 51-59; Sandra Scarr-Salapatek, "Race, Social Class, and I.Q.," Science, 174 (December, 1971), 1285-1295.

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 19:37:29 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS 519

light is the entry into the fray of scholars expert in one scientific field but of questionable competence in another, where their biases tend to show.4 John R. Baker must be counted in the latter group.

There are many ways of proving the superiority of some races, but they tend to fall into two broad classes: an examination of biological evolution and physical anthropology, including measurement of psy- chological variables such as intelligence; or an examination of the cultural history of achievement and civilization. Baker uses both ap- proaches to what he calls the study of the ethnic problem, referring to a scientific or intellectual problem, not to political or social action.

The first of the book's four parts is devoted to a history of scientific thought and research on the subspecies of mankind. He intends to sort the wheat from the chaff among the writings of such major thinkers as J.F. Blumenbach, S.T. Sbmmerring, P. Camper, F. Tiedeman, J.A. Gobineau, H.S. Chamberlain, and G. Kossina. He ends with Pitirim Sorokin's chapter on the ethnic problem in 1928,5 because he feels nothing as evenhanded has been published since.

This chapter is memorable, for it marks the close of the period in which both sides in the ethnic controversy were free to put forward their views, and authors who wished to do so could give objective accounts of the evi- dence pointing in each direction. From the beginning of the thirties on- wards scarcely anyone outside Germany and its allies dared to suggest that any race might be in any respect or in any sense superior to any other, lest it should appear that the author was supporting or excusing the Nazi cause. Those who believed in the equality of all races were free to write what they liked, without fear of contradiction. They made full use of their opportunity in the decades that followed, when nothing resembling Sorokin's chapter appeared in print. He himself supported neither side. All he did was to express, clearly and shortly, the views of both sides in the controversy. Sorokin's chapter is well worth reading to- day, as a reminder of what was still possible before the curtain came down (p. 61).

Baker sees himself as picking up where serious reviews left off in the

early thirties. But he also recognizes that major advances in biology in the intervening years need to be built into the study of human races.

4William Shockley, "A Try Simplest Cases Approach to the Hereditary-Poverty- Crime Problem," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 57 (1967), 1767-1774; Shockley, "Dysgenics, Geneticity, Raceology: A Challenge to the Intellectual Respon- sibility of Educators," Phi Delta Kappan, Special Supplement (January, 1972), 297-307.

5Pitirim A. Sorokin, Contemporary Sociological Theories (New York, 1928), ch. 5, "Anthropo-Racial School, Selectionist and Hereditarist School," 219-308.

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520 BOOK REVIEWS

Parts Two and Three are devoted to a review of taxonomy and physi- cal anthropology. Baker is an emeritus reader in cytology from Oxford University, who has obviously devoted a lifetime of study and thought to the subjects he discusses. His explication of animal and human tax- onomy is accordingly exceptionally clear, as is, incidentally, his writing as a whole. His discussion of the concepts of family, genus, species, and subspecies bears the mark of a mature biological scientist, and his intro- duction to chromosomes, genes, and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as well as hybridity is everything one may expect from an expert cytologist.

Baker analyzes the varieties of man as a Formenkreis. In animals this represents a graded series of subspecies, geographically distinct, capable of interbreeding among adjacent subspecies in the natural habitat. Yet subspecies from the extremes of the geographic range may be suffi- ciently diverse to make hybrids nonviable, or merely laboratory speci- mens. Such extreme subspecies would be regarded as separate species in the absence of the intervening forms. Since intervening forms for all living species have merely become extinct in the course of evolutionary history, he draws our attention to the concept that species and subspecies lack historical depth. They are temporary endpoints in an ongoing process.

His examination of man as a Formenkreis leads him to the conclusion "that the facts of human hybridity do not prove that all human races are to be regarded as belonging to a single 'species' " (p. 98), this because "many of the possible [subspecific] crosses have not been made" (p. 97), and because "there is no proof that hybridity among human beings is invariably eugenesic" (p. 97). In this context his discussion of the Cape Coloured population is interesting. He sees them as a hybrid be- tween rather distant Europid and Khoisanid "stragglers," resembling some interspecific crosses occurring naturally in the animal world. Al- though he admits they show no sign of reduced fertility, he seems to think that the question of benefits of such hybridization remains open. It is difficult to fault a scholar whose bibliography runs to 1181 items in five languages for not examining yet one more volume. But Eugen Fischer's classic genetic study6 of the Rehoboth Bastards does indicate hybrid vigor for these people, and Baker cites other works by Fischer.

In the last three chapters of Part Three Baker passes beyond physical

6Eugen Fischer, Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardierungsproblem beim Menschen (Jena, 1913, reprinted in Graz, 1961).

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BOOK REVIEWS 521

anthropology to an examination of the culture of the Negrids. The fourth part is explicitly titled "Criteria of Superiority and Inferiority," and the historical theme is picked up in the last chapter, "Racial Differ- ences in Achievement. II. Civilization." He intends to examine African cultural achievement in isolation from the influences of other civiliza- tions. To this end he relies on the careful record of nineteenth-century explorers in those parts of Africa untouched by European or Islamic in- fluences (see map, p. 337). The seven he selects are H.F. Fynn, D. Livingstone, F. Galton, P.B. DuChaillu, J.H. Speke, S.W. Baker, and G. Schweinfurth, whom he considers "acute observers, interested in native customs and as unprejudiced as possible" (p. 343).

Baker attempts to answer the question of which races are capable of independently creating a civilization (p. 506). To this end he provides us with a checklist of twenty-one civilizing requirements (pp. 507-508), and informs us that only five civilizations originated independently (p. 520). If this sounds like rather broad historical theorizing, it is. But Baker must be credited with being explicit in his assumptions and con- clusions, and with citing his evidence in full detail.

Baker's historical approach can be criticized on three grounds. First, he relies overly on older authorities for his historical assessment of African societies. The revolution in African historical writing which took place in the sixties appears to have escaped him. Second, this ap- proach leads him to make the most of foreign influences on African achievements. He relies on L. Segy,7 Leo Frobenius,8 and H.J. Braunholtz9 to speculate on Greco-Roman influence on Ife sculptures (pp. 414-417), while remarking that none of the heads "represent[s] typical Negrids of any subrace" (p. 414). In regard to Zimbabwe Baker comes to the contradictory conclusion that it either was not a civiliza- tion, or that foreign influences are responsible (pp. 401-409).

My most serious criticism of Baker's history, however, is that he seems oblivious to the concept that cultures grow by interaction, by diffusion and acculturation of traits and thought. In excluding the savanna kingdoms and the city states of the East African coast, he is of course left with the most isolated, least developed (in his sense) African societies. By insisting on independence of civilization, Baker expounds a rather naive view of the growth of human culture, and it is for this reason that I must regard his historical analysis as incompetent.

7L. Segy, African Sculpture Speaks (New York, 1961). 8Leo Frobenius, The Voice of Africa: Being an Account of the Travels of the German Inner

African Exploration Expedition in the Years 1910-1912, 2 vols. (London, 1913); Frobenius, Das ubekannte Africa (Munchen, 1923).

9H.J. Braunholtz, "Bronze -lead from Ife, Nigeria," British Museum Quarterly, 14

(1940), 75-77.

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522 BOOK REVIEWS

The remainder of Part Four is devoted to the assessment of cognitive ability. It is a competent review of recent and older work on intelligence testing, twin inheritance studies, and racial differences. Allowing for the fact that Baker stands clearly on one side of the controversy, it is a useful discussion, especially for its historical depth and bibliographic access to the literature.

What, then, are we to make of Race? Scientific thought has come a long way since Thomas Jefferson's speculation about black Americans framed the terms of the debate: "In memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid."10 No doubt remains that one can be found, or that the competent in every race are many. Today, the controversy centers on averages and relative comparisons. But to anyone who thinks that scientific racism is dead and buried, I recommend a close and thorough reading of Baker. His book records one extreme of what the scientific evidence might sup- port.

Injustice to the author, I wish to report that he does not see his work as contributing to interracial hostility. At the end of his conclusion he gives this thought special emphasis:

Every ethnic taxon of man includes many persons capable of living responsible and useful lives in the communities to which they belong, while even in those taxa that are best known for their contributions to the world's store of intellectual wealth, there are many so mentally defi- cient that they would be inadequate members of any society. It follows that no one can claim superiority simply because he or she belongs to a particular ethnic taxon (p. 534).

Somehow it sends shivers down my back.

WOLF RODER

University of Cincinnati

l?Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, cited in Winthrop D. Jordan, White over Black (Baltimore, 1969), 436.

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