American Theories of Polygenesis is the first set in the Concepts of Race in the Nineteenth Century series edited by Robert Bernasconi. The seven-volume collection brings together key works on the creationist theory of polygenesis. In the mid-nineteenth century, American ethnological research was dominated by two polygenists, Samuel George Morton and Louis Agassiz. Their works on the subject are represented in this set, as are the major texts of the two most famous popularizers of polygenesis, Josiah Nott and George Gliddon. Charles Hamilton Smith's work, which was adopted by supporters of polygenesis in the United States, is included in its American edition, as is the translation of Arthur Gobineau's classic essay on the inequality of the human races by Henry Hotz, a work which Nott and Hotz doctored to bring into line with American polygenesis. This set is completed with a volume by John Bachman, an American opponent of Nott and Gliddon, and another by Alexander Winchell, a representative of the next generation of American polygenists. Historians of science, anthropology, American philosophy and evolution will find this collection indispensable for understanding one of the key debates on race in the nineteenth century.
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