What do you think?
Rate this book
Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines
The Inequality of the Human Races
This work was the first modern attempt to prove that race is the primary force determining world events and history.
Working with the limited scientific data available at the time of writing (1853), Arthur de Gobineau divided humans into three major groupings, white, yellow and black.
He argues that the cause of the downfall of civilizations is always racial mixing, and that every civilization has either been directly controlled by what he called "Aryans" or has had a significant Aryan element mixed in it.
He also argues that climate and environment have no bearing on racial characteristics.
This book was a cornerstone work for 20th century racial theory, and is of immense importance for this reason alone.
This new edition has been completely reset and contains all the original text.
Working with the limited scientific data available at the time of writing (1853), Arthur de Gobineau divided humans into three major groupings, white, yellow and black.
He argues that the cause of the downfall of civilizations is always racial mixing, and that every civilization has either been directly controlled by what he called "Aryans" or has had a significant Aryan element mixed in it.
He also argues that climate and environment have no bearing on racial characteristics.
This book was a cornerstone work for 20th century racial theory, and is of immense importance for this reason alone.
This new edition has been completely reset and contains all the original text.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1854
62 people are currently reading
1190 people want to read
About the author
Arthur de Gobineau
265 books47 followersJoseph Arthur de Gobineau was a French aristocrat, novelist and man of letters who became famous for developing the racialist theory of the Aryan master race in his book "An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races"
Gobineau went to a French diplomatic school and became a diplomat in the USA, Norway, Brazil and Persia. His racial ideas were spawned in Persian society, he considered there was a natural barrier between the etnicities in Persian society.
Gobineau was born in a staunch royalist family and his mother is to be said was of Creole-Haitian origin.
Gobineau was also an admirer of Greek and Scandinavian culture
Gobineau went to a French diplomatic school and became a diplomat in the USA, Norway, Brazil and Persia. His racial ideas were spawned in Persian society, he considered there was a natural barrier between the etnicities in Persian society.
Gobineau was born in a staunch royalist family and his mother is to be said was of Creole-Haitian origin.
Gobineau was also an admirer of Greek and Scandinavian culture
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
September 8, 2012
This is a very interesting and thought-provoking book. It's good, not because its reasoning is correct (because it clearly isn't), but because it paints a very clear picture of the rationale for racism and even sets the stage for future Nazi race philosophy. Again, remember that while the positions the book advocates may clearly be morally and logically wrong, the book itself is very valuable for what it reveals about racist thought.
February 27, 2025
A very interesting read. Arthur de Gobineau is often viewed as the father of race science, based on this text. In some ways, he anticipates both Madison Grant's views on race and eugenics as well as Oswald Spengler's organic conception of the rise and fall of civilizations. On the other hand, this is pre-Darwinian, therefore does not take its cues from an evolutionary framework, and consequently is not particularly consonant with racialism from Darwin on up to today.
In some ways, this essay would surprise modern liberals. Gobineau is highly skeptical and scientific. He challenges the 'inequality of races' as much as he supports it. Furthermore, he does not take it for granted that whites are superior. He expresses doubt about the methodology of filling skulls with peppercorns to assess brain size – thereby agreeing with an argument made by Marxist arch-egalitarian Stephen Jay Gould a century and a half later. Gobineau is not really a white supremacist and argues that other cultures, however primitive, deserve to be allowed to develop in their own way. Though he supports imperialism, he totally rejects the idea that members of other races can or should be remade in the image of Europeans, they can only be what they are.
In some ways, this essay would surprise modern liberals. Gobineau is highly skeptical and scientific. He challenges the 'inequality of races' as much as he supports it. Furthermore, he does not take it for granted that whites are superior. He expresses doubt about the methodology of filling skulls with peppercorns to assess brain size – thereby agreeing with an argument made by Marxist arch-egalitarian Stephen Jay Gould a century and a half later. Gobineau is not really a white supremacist and argues that other cultures, however primitive, deserve to be allowed to develop in their own way. Though he supports imperialism, he totally rejects the idea that members of other races can or should be remade in the image of Europeans, they can only be what they are.
November 28, 2015
A classic civilizational study from Gobineau. Although accurate in its general premise, flawed in many details. It has been lambasted for being pseudo scientific and accused of giving credibility to ideas that have impacted the world in a negative way. But as it was published in the 1850s, compared to many of its contemporary works, like Das Kapital for instance, that got both the premise and the details wrong and directly led to the horrors of communism, I cant help think that the vitriol directed at this work (who at best had an indirect influence) has more to do with the post-WW2 framing of morality than any objective standard of judgment.
I would recommend reading Why Civilizations Self-Destruct by Elmer Pendell as a more updated and accurate version of the same premise.
I would recommend reading Why Civilizations Self-Destruct by Elmer Pendell as a more updated and accurate version of the same premise.
July 14, 2017
L'essai sur l'inégalité des races has legendary status. It is often credited with having been the source for Hitler's theory of a master Aryan race. The prime purpose for reading the book is to obtain an understanding of the intellectual roots of political racism and Nazism . It is hard not to be nervous about reading such an odious work.
Gobineau does indeed argue that a master Aryan race having its origins in Central Asia provided the racial stock for all the nobilities of Europe. He is convinced that the Aryans have an inherent right to conquer rule over the other racial groups on the planet. One becomes progressively more repulsed the further one gets into this alarming work.
However extravagant his ideas may have been, Gobineau demonstrated considerable erudition . In his footnotes he quotes his sources in English, German, Greek, and occasionally French. Gobineau was an aristocrat and was writing for the intellectual elite of Europe. He took it for granted that his readers would be familiar with all these languages.
Gobineau was not a twentieth-century demagogue promoting racism for the masses. Rather he was an nineteenth century European telling his peers that the nations of Western Europe by virtue of their superior racial stock had the right to colonize the rest of the world. Just as Marx explains all human history as being economically determined in Das Kapital , Gobineau explains global human history from the beginning to the current era as being determined by race.
Gobineau argues that education and institutions can neither improve nor degrade races. Rather races chose the institutions and education that are appropriate to their races. Institutions proper to one race fail to work properly when imposed on another. When a race begins to change the institutions that have made it successful it has entered into an era decadence. Races only begin to change their institutions after they have allowed metissage (racial intermingling) to undermine their purity. Maintaining racial purity then is the key for any successful race to maintaining its superiority and avoiding decline.
At the start of the work Gobineau appears to be quite self-critical. He acknowledges that his ideas will offend those who follow the Enlightenment school of philosophy which held all men to be equal and that man was either elevated or debased demanding whether he lived in a society with good or bad institutions. Similarly, Gobineau conceded that his ideas were contrary to Christian teaching which held that all men were descended from Adam and equal before God. Finally, Gobineau concedes that the scientific evidence in support of his contention that human races differ greatly and that there is a clear hierarchy from greater to lesser of races is very weak. Having recognized the weaknesses underlying his thesis, Gobineau then ignores them. By about a quarter of the way through the book, Gobineau abandons all reserves and expounds progressively wilder racist ideas.
Gobineau was very much a product of his time. He was living in the glory days of linguistics and ethnography. Scholars were studying Sanscrit to see if it was the first language and from there develop a theory of the evolution of human language. Folk tales were being collected throughout Europe. Ethnographers were studying the social and culture practices in primitive societies. Attempts were made to catalogue the physical characteristics of the various peoples on this planet. In this context it was perhaps inevitable that some thinker like Gobineau would appear to propose a theory that race was the dominant factor in human history.
Gobineau's book still shocks. If you are interested in understanding how racist parties like the Nazis came into being, you might find L'essai sur l'inégalité des races to be an interesting albeit painful read.
Gobineau does indeed argue that a master Aryan race having its origins in Central Asia provided the racial stock for all the nobilities of Europe. He is convinced that the Aryans have an inherent right to conquer rule over the other racial groups on the planet. One becomes progressively more repulsed the further one gets into this alarming work.
However extravagant his ideas may have been, Gobineau demonstrated considerable erudition . In his footnotes he quotes his sources in English, German, Greek, and occasionally French. Gobineau was an aristocrat and was writing for the intellectual elite of Europe. He took it for granted that his readers would be familiar with all these languages.
Gobineau was not a twentieth-century demagogue promoting racism for the masses. Rather he was an nineteenth century European telling his peers that the nations of Western Europe by virtue of their superior racial stock had the right to colonize the rest of the world. Just as Marx explains all human history as being economically determined in Das Kapital , Gobineau explains global human history from the beginning to the current era as being determined by race.
Gobineau argues that education and institutions can neither improve nor degrade races. Rather races chose the institutions and education that are appropriate to their races. Institutions proper to one race fail to work properly when imposed on another. When a race begins to change the institutions that have made it successful it has entered into an era decadence. Races only begin to change their institutions after they have allowed metissage (racial intermingling) to undermine their purity. Maintaining racial purity then is the key for any successful race to maintaining its superiority and avoiding decline.
At the start of the work Gobineau appears to be quite self-critical. He acknowledges that his ideas will offend those who follow the Enlightenment school of philosophy which held all men to be equal and that man was either elevated or debased demanding whether he lived in a society with good or bad institutions. Similarly, Gobineau conceded that his ideas were contrary to Christian teaching which held that all men were descended from Adam and equal before God. Finally, Gobineau concedes that the scientific evidence in support of his contention that human races differ greatly and that there is a clear hierarchy from greater to lesser of races is very weak. Having recognized the weaknesses underlying his thesis, Gobineau then ignores them. By about a quarter of the way through the book, Gobineau abandons all reserves and expounds progressively wilder racist ideas.
Gobineau was very much a product of his time. He was living in the glory days of linguistics and ethnography. Scholars were studying Sanscrit to see if it was the first language and from there develop a theory of the evolution of human language. Folk tales were being collected throughout Europe. Ethnographers were studying the social and culture practices in primitive societies. Attempts were made to catalogue the physical characteristics of the various peoples on this planet. In this context it was perhaps inevitable that some thinker like Gobineau would appear to propose a theory that race was the dominant factor in human history.
Gobineau's book still shocks. If you are interested in understanding how racist parties like the Nazis came into being, you might find L'essai sur l'inégalité des races to be an interesting albeit painful read.
November 28, 2023
Gobineau builds a strong case that human races are unequal in intellect and in their capacity to create civilization. The vast majority of human races would have never been able to create a civilization on their own, and the spark and impulse had to be provided, in all cases, by the White race. Gobineau makes us reflect on the fact that human progress is not inevitable, and we must abandon the notion that it's just a matter of time before each race evolves to a higher stage of being. Civilization is not to be taken for granted. Civilization of course means both material progress and prosperity, and the development of higher culture and morality.
While I agree with the central thesis of the book, I am disappointed by the lack of arguments. The book could have built a very strong case for the inequality between races. For example with juxtapositions between the race that gave us the The Iliad / The Odyssey with a race that couldn't intent a written language, a race who built the Colosseum with a race that couldn't built a two-story building, a race that decided to abolish slavery out of the goodness of its hearth with a race that practiced cannibalism (and to a small extent still does). Instead, we're given discussions of countless populations but without a clearly defined argument other than "we're all different". I didn't think it was possible for a book written in 1850s to be poisoned by political correctness, but that's what it feels like. He tries to find redeeming qualities in even the lowest of the savage tribes, and finding flaws in even the highest of civilizations.
There's a clear reverence to Christianity which seems to have prevented a more objective, scientific judgement. Gobineau also insists that all humans belong to the same species, and uses as his only argument the fact that we can interbreed. But this is a common misconception, as there are countless of different species that can interbreed. For example the dog, the coyote, and the wolf are 3 different species and they can all interbreed. In fact there are 5 distinct species of wolves; and the physical difference between a Grey Wolf and an African Wolf or a Coyote is clearly much less than the difference between a Nordic man and a pygmy. My problem here is Gobineau's lack of argument, not his conclusion - I'm open to different opinions on this, but they need to be motivated by logic and scientific facts.
This book however, is able to build some strong points:
In the analysis of the possible causes of the downfall of civilizations, Gobineau debunks the ancient idea that a civilization falls because of causes such as: "luxury, effeminacy, misgovernment, fanaticism, and the corruption of morals". He does this by bringing concrete examples of civilizations that suffered all of these problems and still thrived.
Gobineau also proves that Christianity does not create or change the capacity for civilization. Countless savage tribes had been converted to Christianity in his own time, and this conversion brought no trace of civilization. The reason is that Christianity only cares about the afterlife and not about the social structure or political organization of a people. Therefore there is no such thing as a "Christian civilization". Christianity is universal and focused only on the spiritual realm (and even here, it's pretty much only about loving Jesus), therefore it adapts itself to the customs of every people - from the most civilized to the most savage. You can open a map of the most Christian countries today and see that they have nothing in common.
The book debunks the false idea, widespread even today, that climate and soil are the factors responsible of civilization. Gobineau brings concrete examples of territories with fertile soil and mild climate, such as certain parts of America, contrasted with areas of the globe where the soil was so unproductive that it had to be artificially fertilized, like ancient India (originally settled by White people), or that required extensive work of irrigation like in the country between the Euphrates and the Tigris (Assyrian empire, again White people). He gives the example of the Phoenicians, who settled in a rocky desert in Syria. The misery of their land awakened their genius: "they were also clever and enterprising merchants, bold and lucky speculators". Gobineau gives many more examples of successful civilizations contrasted to people who lived in a more favorable areas of the world but couldn't make progresses. The only thing that determines the capacity for civilization is race. To put the final nail in coffin of the myth of the environment, Gobineau talks about the Jews. Even after living for centuries in very different environments, and even speaking different languages, the Jews have retained the general character of their race; both physically and mentally.
In fact, Gobineau is very clear on the fact that a race does not change, except for race-mixing. Political upheavals and technological progress have no effect on the character of a race, which remains immutable.
Overall, there are good things to take from this book. But the book doesn't sufficiently describe the differences between races. Therefore I wouldn't recommend it to those who want to explore the idea of the superiority of the White race, regardless of what you think of it. The book The Rising Tide of Color is much better because it describes the different characters of each race, the identity and solidarity among White people in the 19th century, and the inevitability of global racial conflict.
While I agree with the central thesis of the book, I am disappointed by the lack of arguments. The book could have built a very strong case for the inequality between races. For example with juxtapositions between the race that gave us the The Iliad / The Odyssey with a race that couldn't intent a written language, a race who built the Colosseum with a race that couldn't built a two-story building, a race that decided to abolish slavery out of the goodness of its hearth with a race that practiced cannibalism (and to a small extent still does). Instead, we're given discussions of countless populations but without a clearly defined argument other than "we're all different". I didn't think it was possible for a book written in 1850s to be poisoned by political correctness, but that's what it feels like. He tries to find redeeming qualities in even the lowest of the savage tribes, and finding flaws in even the highest of civilizations.
There's a clear reverence to Christianity which seems to have prevented a more objective, scientific judgement. Gobineau also insists that all humans belong to the same species, and uses as his only argument the fact that we can interbreed. But this is a common misconception, as there are countless of different species that can interbreed. For example the dog, the coyote, and the wolf are 3 different species and they can all interbreed. In fact there are 5 distinct species of wolves; and the physical difference between a Grey Wolf and an African Wolf or a Coyote is clearly much less than the difference between a Nordic man and a pygmy. My problem here is Gobineau's lack of argument, not his conclusion - I'm open to different opinions on this, but they need to be motivated by logic and scientific facts.
This book however, is able to build some strong points:
In the analysis of the possible causes of the downfall of civilizations, Gobineau debunks the ancient idea that a civilization falls because of causes such as: "luxury, effeminacy, misgovernment, fanaticism, and the corruption of morals". He does this by bringing concrete examples of civilizations that suffered all of these problems and still thrived.
Gobineau also proves that Christianity does not create or change the capacity for civilization. Countless savage tribes had been converted to Christianity in his own time, and this conversion brought no trace of civilization. The reason is that Christianity only cares about the afterlife and not about the social structure or political organization of a people. Therefore there is no such thing as a "Christian civilization". Christianity is universal and focused only on the spiritual realm (and even here, it's pretty much only about loving Jesus), therefore it adapts itself to the customs of every people - from the most civilized to the most savage. You can open a map of the most Christian countries today and see that they have nothing in common.
The book debunks the false idea, widespread even today, that climate and soil are the factors responsible of civilization. Gobineau brings concrete examples of territories with fertile soil and mild climate, such as certain parts of America, contrasted with areas of the globe where the soil was so unproductive that it had to be artificially fertilized, like ancient India (originally settled by White people), or that required extensive work of irrigation like in the country between the Euphrates and the Tigris (Assyrian empire, again White people). He gives the example of the Phoenicians, who settled in a rocky desert in Syria. The misery of their land awakened their genius: "they were also clever and enterprising merchants, bold and lucky speculators". Gobineau gives many more examples of successful civilizations contrasted to people who lived in a more favorable areas of the world but couldn't make progresses. The only thing that determines the capacity for civilization is race. To put the final nail in coffin of the myth of the environment, Gobineau talks about the Jews. Even after living for centuries in very different environments, and even speaking different languages, the Jews have retained the general character of their race; both physically and mentally.
In fact, Gobineau is very clear on the fact that a race does not change, except for race-mixing. Political upheavals and technological progress have no effect on the character of a race, which remains immutable.
Overall, there are good things to take from this book. But the book doesn't sufficiently describe the differences between races. Therefore I wouldn't recommend it to those who want to explore the idea of the superiority of the White race, regardless of what you think of it. The book The Rising Tide of Color is much better because it describes the different characters of each race, the identity and solidarity among White people in the 19th century, and the inevitability of global racial conflict.
January 28, 2008
When I expressed my disdain for this book, my professor called me "a child of empiricism" and suggested that I could learn from it. She was right. This book offers useful insights into the willful irrationality of racism, and a look into a time, a milieu, that was steeped in it. It is worth pondering how educated people, any people, thought they had reason to believe such nonsense. (I still don't like it.)
February 8, 2010
To give this racist polemic any more than two stars is impossible.
Reading Gobineau's pseudoscientific justification for a racial hierarchy that postures the "white race" as the dominant class is a challenging journey in itself. More challenging, however, is understanding the weight that this publication had on the development of racial thought throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Certainly not a pleasure read, but useful to understand white supremacists early justifications for their believed "inherent" dominance.
Reading Gobineau's pseudoscientific justification for a racial hierarchy that postures the "white race" as the dominant class is a challenging journey in itself. More challenging, however, is understanding the weight that this publication had on the development of racial thought throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Certainly not a pleasure read, but useful to understand white supremacists early justifications for their believed "inherent" dominance.
Read
January 31, 2019Read for class. One of the most vehemently racist texts I’ve ever encountered.
September 11, 2023
The Inequality of Human Races utkom 1853 och är skriven av den Franske adelsmannen Arthur de Gobineau. Den här boken, som är anti-egalitär och pro-hierarkisk, anses säkerligen kontroversiell i vårat moderna samhälle men den representerade, när den utgavs, bara den världsbilden som var allmänt vedertagen:
“The idea of an original, clear-cut, and permanent inequality among the different races is one of the oldest and most widelyheld opinions in the world.“ s.36
Författaren presenterar två huvudteser och spenderar den största delen av boken med att bevisa dessa. Teserna är:
1. Det finns tre huvudsakliga människoraser; nämligen vita, svarta och gula. Mellan dessa existerar en tydlig och väl underbyggd hierarki. De olika kombinationerna av dessa tre utgör under-raser.
2. Den avgörande orsaken till att en civilisation faller är att den rasen som skapat civilisationen börjar blanda sitt blod med andra raser. Alla andra orsaker till civilisationsförfall går att reversera eller reparera utom denna huvudorsak.
Den här boken är ett intressant tidsdokument som presenterar läsaren med perspektiv och slutsatser som är tabubelagda i våran samtida diskurs. Avslutningsvis delar vi med oss av ett citat som på ett bra sätt återger bokens ton och stil.
“Even if we admit that it is better to turn a myriad of degraded beings into mediocre men than to preserve the race of princes whose blood is adulterated and impoverished by being made to suffer this dishonourable change, yet there is still the unfortunate fact that the change does not stop here ; for when the mediocre men are once created at the expense of the greater, they combine with other mediocrities, and from such unions, which grow ever more and more degraded, is born a confusion which, like that of Babel, ends in uttere impotence, and leads societies down to the abyss of nothingness whence no power on earth can rescue them. Such is the lesson of history. It shows us that all civilizations derive from the white race, that none can exist without its help, and that a society is great and brilliant only so far as it preserves the blood of the noble group that created it, provided that this group itself belongs to the most illustrious branch of our species.” s.210
“The idea of an original, clear-cut, and permanent inequality among the different races is one of the oldest and most widelyheld opinions in the world.“ s.36
Författaren presenterar två huvudteser och spenderar den största delen av boken med att bevisa dessa. Teserna är:
1. Det finns tre huvudsakliga människoraser; nämligen vita, svarta och gula. Mellan dessa existerar en tydlig och väl underbyggd hierarki. De olika kombinationerna av dessa tre utgör under-raser.
2. Den avgörande orsaken till att en civilisation faller är att den rasen som skapat civilisationen börjar blanda sitt blod med andra raser. Alla andra orsaker till civilisationsförfall går att reversera eller reparera utom denna huvudorsak.
Den här boken är ett intressant tidsdokument som presenterar läsaren med perspektiv och slutsatser som är tabubelagda i våran samtida diskurs. Avslutningsvis delar vi med oss av ett citat som på ett bra sätt återger bokens ton och stil.
“Even if we admit that it is better to turn a myriad of degraded beings into mediocre men than to preserve the race of princes whose blood is adulterated and impoverished by being made to suffer this dishonourable change, yet there is still the unfortunate fact that the change does not stop here ; for when the mediocre men are once created at the expense of the greater, they combine with other mediocrities, and from such unions, which grow ever more and more degraded, is born a confusion which, like that of Babel, ends in uttere impotence, and leads societies down to the abyss of nothingness whence no power on earth can rescue them. Such is the lesson of history. It shows us that all civilizations derive from the white race, that none can exist without its help, and that a society is great and brilliant only so far as it preserves the blood of the noble group that created it, provided that this group itself belongs to the most illustrious branch of our species.” s.210
December 5, 2020
Though often smeared as the pamphlet of racism, de Gobineau reaches further to the questions of civilization and especially of its decline, I personally took for the most valuable and underestimated sections. Many of ideas od this book are simply antiquated, but de Gobineau is still worth of reading. However, be warned, snowflakes will not enjoy it!
September 26, 2018
why 1? give yourself the displeasure of reading couple of excerpts, and you will get why 1, or even should have been ZERO. This is a pseudo-science chauvinistic fascist garbage in its entirety.
QUOTE
"I have shown the unique place in the organic world occupied by the human species, the profound physical, as well as moral, differences separating it from all other kinds of living creatures. Considering it by itself, I have been able to distinguish, on physiological grounds alone, three great and clearly marked types, the black, the yellow, and the white. However uncertain the aims of physiology may be, however meager its resources, however defective its methods, it can proceed thus far with absolute certainty.
The negroid variety is the lowest, and stands at the foot of the ladder. The animal character, that appears in the shape of the pelvis, is stamped on the negro from birth, and foreshadows his destiny. His intellect will always move within a very narrow circle. He is not however a mere brute, for behind his low receding brow, in the middle of his skull, we can see signs of a powerful energy, however crude its objects. If his mental faculties are dull or even non-existent, he often has an intensity of desire, and so of will, which may be called terrible. Many of his senses, especially taste and smell, are developed to an extent unknown to the other two races.
The very strength of his sensations is the most striking proof of his inferiority. All food is good in his eyes, nothing disgusts or repels him. What he desires is to eat, to eat furiously, and to excess; no carrion2 is too revolting to be swallowed by him. It is the same with odours; his inordinate desires are satisfied with all, however coarse or even horrible. To these qualities may be added an instability and capriciousness3 of feeling, that cannot be tied down to any single object, and which, so far as he is concerned, do away with all distinctions of good and evil. We might even say that the violence with which he pursues the object that has aroused his senses and inflamed his desires is a guarantee of the desires being soon satisfied and the object forgotten. Finally, he is equally careless of his own life and that of others: he kills willingly, for the sake of killing; and this human machine, in whom it is so easy to arouse emotion, shows, in face of suffering, either a monstrous indifference or a cowardice that seeks a voluntary refuge in death.
The yellow race is the exact opposite of this type. The skull points forward, not backward. The forehead is wide and bony, often high and projecting. The shape of the face is triangular, the nose and chin showing none of the coarse protuberances that mark the negro. There is further a general proneness to obesity, which, though not confined to the yellow type, is found there more frequently than in the others. The yellow man has little physical energy, and is inclined to apathy; he commits none of the strange excesses so common among negroes. His desires are feeble, his will-power rather obstinate than violent; his longing for material pleasures, though constant, is kept within bounds. A rare glutton4 by nature, he shows far more discrimination in his choice of food. He tends to mediocrity in everything; he understands easily enough anything not too deep or sublime. He has a love of utility and a respect for order, and knows the value of a certain amount of freedom. He is practical, in the narrowest sense of the word. He does not dream or theorize; he invents little, but can appreciate and take over what is useful to him. His whole desire is to live in the easiest and most comfortable way possible. The yellow races are thus clearly superior to the black. Every founder of a civilization would wish the backbone of his society, his middle class, to consist of such men. But no civilized society could be created by them; they could not supply its nerve-force, or set in motion the springs of beauty and action.
We come now to the white peoples. These are gifted with reflective energy, or rather with an energetic intelligence. They have a feeling for utility, but in a sense far wider and higher, more courageous and ideal, than the yellow races; a perseverance that takes account of obstacles and ultimately finds a means of overcoming them; a greater physical power, an extraordinary instinct for order, not merely as a guarantee of peace and tranquility, but as an indispensable means of self-preservation. At the same time, they have a remarkable, and even extreme, love of liberty, and are openly hostile to the formalism under which the Chinese are glad to vegetate, as well as to the strict despotism which is the only way of governing the negro.
The white races are, further, distinguished by an extraordinary attachment to life. They know better how to use it, and so, as it would seem, set a greater price on it; both in their own persons and those of others, they are more sparing of life. When they are cruel, they are conscious of their cruelty; it is very doubtful whether such a consciousness exists in the negro. At the same time, they have discovered reasons why they should surrender this busy life of theirs, that is so precious to them. The principal motive is honour, which under various names has played an enormous part in the ideas of the race from the beginning. I need hardly add that the word honour, together with all the civilizing influences connoted by it, is unknown to both the yellow and the black man.
On the other hand, the immense superiority of the white peoples in the whole field of the intellect is balanced by an inferiority in the intensity of their sensations. In the world of the senses, the white man is far less gifted than the others, and so is less tempted and less absorbed by considerations of the body, although in physical structure he is far the most vigorous.
Such are the three constituent elements of the human race. I call them secondary types, as I think myself obliged to omit all discussion of the Adamite man. From the combination, by intermarriage, of the varieties of these types come the tertiary groups. The quaternary formations are produced by the union of one of these tertiary types, or of a pure-blooded tribe, with another group taken from one of the two foreign species."
UNQUOTE
QUOTE
"I have shown the unique place in the organic world occupied by the human species, the profound physical, as well as moral, differences separating it from all other kinds of living creatures. Considering it by itself, I have been able to distinguish, on physiological grounds alone, three great and clearly marked types, the black, the yellow, and the white. However uncertain the aims of physiology may be, however meager its resources, however defective its methods, it can proceed thus far with absolute certainty.
The negroid variety is the lowest, and stands at the foot of the ladder. The animal character, that appears in the shape of the pelvis, is stamped on the negro from birth, and foreshadows his destiny. His intellect will always move within a very narrow circle. He is not however a mere brute, for behind his low receding brow, in the middle of his skull, we can see signs of a powerful energy, however crude its objects. If his mental faculties are dull or even non-existent, he often has an intensity of desire, and so of will, which may be called terrible. Many of his senses, especially taste and smell, are developed to an extent unknown to the other two races.
The very strength of his sensations is the most striking proof of his inferiority. All food is good in his eyes, nothing disgusts or repels him. What he desires is to eat, to eat furiously, and to excess; no carrion2 is too revolting to be swallowed by him. It is the same with odours; his inordinate desires are satisfied with all, however coarse or even horrible. To these qualities may be added an instability and capriciousness3 of feeling, that cannot be tied down to any single object, and which, so far as he is concerned, do away with all distinctions of good and evil. We might even say that the violence with which he pursues the object that has aroused his senses and inflamed his desires is a guarantee of the desires being soon satisfied and the object forgotten. Finally, he is equally careless of his own life and that of others: he kills willingly, for the sake of killing; and this human machine, in whom it is so easy to arouse emotion, shows, in face of suffering, either a monstrous indifference or a cowardice that seeks a voluntary refuge in death.
The yellow race is the exact opposite of this type. The skull points forward, not backward. The forehead is wide and bony, often high and projecting. The shape of the face is triangular, the nose and chin showing none of the coarse protuberances that mark the negro. There is further a general proneness to obesity, which, though not confined to the yellow type, is found there more frequently than in the others. The yellow man has little physical energy, and is inclined to apathy; he commits none of the strange excesses so common among negroes. His desires are feeble, his will-power rather obstinate than violent; his longing for material pleasures, though constant, is kept within bounds. A rare glutton4 by nature, he shows far more discrimination in his choice of food. He tends to mediocrity in everything; he understands easily enough anything not too deep or sublime. He has a love of utility and a respect for order, and knows the value of a certain amount of freedom. He is practical, in the narrowest sense of the word. He does not dream or theorize; he invents little, but can appreciate and take over what is useful to him. His whole desire is to live in the easiest and most comfortable way possible. The yellow races are thus clearly superior to the black. Every founder of a civilization would wish the backbone of his society, his middle class, to consist of such men. But no civilized society could be created by them; they could not supply its nerve-force, or set in motion the springs of beauty and action.
We come now to the white peoples. These are gifted with reflective energy, or rather with an energetic intelligence. They have a feeling for utility, but in a sense far wider and higher, more courageous and ideal, than the yellow races; a perseverance that takes account of obstacles and ultimately finds a means of overcoming them; a greater physical power, an extraordinary instinct for order, not merely as a guarantee of peace and tranquility, but as an indispensable means of self-preservation. At the same time, they have a remarkable, and even extreme, love of liberty, and are openly hostile to the formalism under which the Chinese are glad to vegetate, as well as to the strict despotism which is the only way of governing the negro.
The white races are, further, distinguished by an extraordinary attachment to life. They know better how to use it, and so, as it would seem, set a greater price on it; both in their own persons and those of others, they are more sparing of life. When they are cruel, they are conscious of their cruelty; it is very doubtful whether such a consciousness exists in the negro. At the same time, they have discovered reasons why they should surrender this busy life of theirs, that is so precious to them. The principal motive is honour, which under various names has played an enormous part in the ideas of the race from the beginning. I need hardly add that the word honour, together with all the civilizing influences connoted by it, is unknown to both the yellow and the black man.
On the other hand, the immense superiority of the white peoples in the whole field of the intellect is balanced by an inferiority in the intensity of their sensations. In the world of the senses, the white man is far less gifted than the others, and so is less tempted and less absorbed by considerations of the body, although in physical structure he is far the most vigorous.
Such are the three constituent elements of the human race. I call them secondary types, as I think myself obliged to omit all discussion of the Adamite man. From the combination, by intermarriage, of the varieties of these types come the tertiary groups. The quaternary formations are produced by the union of one of these tertiary types, or of a pure-blooded tribe, with another group taken from one of the two foreign species."
UNQUOTE
May 18, 2023
I read the work out of curiosity about the race element in fascist ideology. L'inégalité des Races Humaines is an alternative historical lens like materialism is, and a perspective I sought to get a grasp of. It's morbidly fascinating to understand why so many great minds such as Immanuel Kant, Thomas Jefferson, and H.G. Wells ended up as scientific racists and/or eugenicists.
I appreciate the big questions of "why" and "how" the world came to be as it is, and Gobineau was not a total idiot. However, much of what he writes is blatantly incorrect and can only stem from a willful ignorance. "Such is the lesson of history. It shows us that all civilizations derive from the white race, that none can exist without its help..." is an indefensible thing to say with any honest study of world history. Gobineau of course attempts to defend his position, but it simply doesn't work. Interestingly, he was a monogenist and believed all descendants of Adam are white, perhaps implying that all other races may actually be non-human. "We may conclude that the power of producing fertile offspring is among the marks of a distinct species. As nothing leads us to believe that the human race is outside this rule, there is no answer to this argument."
There are some very dangerous and misinformed conclusions that can be made when you forget that we are all made equal as the image of God.
I appreciate the big questions of "why" and "how" the world came to be as it is, and Gobineau was not a total idiot. However, much of what he writes is blatantly incorrect and can only stem from a willful ignorance. "Such is the lesson of history. It shows us that all civilizations derive from the white race, that none can exist without its help..." is an indefensible thing to say with any honest study of world history. Gobineau of course attempts to defend his position, but it simply doesn't work. Interestingly, he was a monogenist and believed all descendants of Adam are white, perhaps implying that all other races may actually be non-human. "We may conclude that the power of producing fertile offspring is among the marks of a distinct species. As nothing leads us to believe that the human race is outside this rule, there is no answer to this argument."
There are some very dangerous and misinformed conclusions that can be made when you forget that we are all made equal as the image of God.
December 17, 2023
Absolutely phenomenal book. It's striking how many of de Gobineau's historical observations and descriptions have been confirmed by modern anthropological and historical studies, and even prove to continue in veracity via observation and data gathered in the current era. His insight, though not always perfect, is rarely actually challenged on merits, but rather attacked with slander, emotion-based vitriol and libel. It's very telling that in over 150 years, little of de Gobineau's thesis has been refuted, only angrily disagreed with by those who live by visceral, rather than rational, reactions. You definitely won't agree with the entirety of this work--I certainly didn't--but it is absolutely a book of great value worth reading. There's much to use the highlighter on in this excellent work. Easy 5 stars.
June 27, 2022
Hitler böyle bir tercümeden okusaydı ikinci dünya savaşı hiç olmazdı, çünkü birşey anlamazdı
Fakat çevirmeni takdir etmek lazım kitabı oldukça yaratıcı bir şekilde mahvetmiş. Şapka konulması gereken yerlere koymayıp geri kalan tüm ünlü harflere koymuş. Yada en son 500 yıl önce kullanılmış tabirleri yanlış yerlerde kullanıp, alakasız yerlerde en son tdk baskısından kelimeler sokuşturmuş
Fakat çevirmeni takdir etmek lazım kitabı oldukça yaratıcı bir şekilde mahvetmiş. Şapka konulması gereken yerlere koymayıp geri kalan tüm ünlü harflere koymuş. Yada en son 500 yıl önce kullanılmış tabirleri yanlış yerlerde kullanıp, alakasız yerlerde en son tdk baskısından kelimeler sokuşturmuş
May 29, 2007
This has been given 3 stars because of amusement value. As I'm sure Misters Banerjee and Shelat can attest, the peppercorns example for determining racial superiority left us all laughing for days.
January 6, 2021
I think one would suffice with only reading the last chapter.
very interesting read in relation to the time the book was written.
very interesting read in relation to the time the book was written.
May 26, 2025
Comte Arthur de Gobineau elucidates a philosophy of history, a philosophy of civilizational degeneration more precisely. Comte Arthur de Gobineau defines a civilization to constitute a chain of events, not merely one event; this addresses the claims of intellectuals who conflate a governmental degeneration with a civilizational degeneration. A governmental collapse of some civilization can constitute an event within the eventful chain of that civilization. Comte Arthur de Gobineau adopts the twofold model of “male” and “female” races to address the question of what a civilization constitutes. Races with a material current are the “male” races, and races with a spiritual current are the “female” races. Comte Arthur de Gobineau does not allege that the “female” races are inferior, he does not mean to use this term to denote something like effeminacy. “Male” nations care more to satisfy material needs, and “female” nations to satisfy spiritual needs; the two can and often do overlap, due to admixture. Comte Arthur de Gobineau argues that a civilization can emerge out of either current, and that we have a civilization when the people generally submit peacefully, with intelligence and good conduct, to the administration of their overlords who generally impose laws that are in accordance with at least one of the two streams, and specifically the stream that their subjects fit into. Europeans are generally of the “female” races, though with some exceptions. Comte Arthur de Gobineau says that the Indians are a good example of the Prakriti “female” principle, and the Chinese of the Purusha “male” principle. Comte Arthur de Gobineau does not make any claims about the Adamite race, and ergo begins the tracing of racial degeneration with the secondary races: White, Black, and Yellow. Comte Arthur de Gobineau shares my caution about using colors to refer to races, since we agree that color constitutes one of, if not the least, significant aspect of race, but we nonetheless both agree that we can use the terms to signal what we actually mean, and ergo not be prey to some word-concept fallacy that suggests every usage of some word must mean the same thing always. Bad governments are not the cause of civilizational decay in themselves (minus administrative practices that onset the intermixture of races, but something like a bad tax policy, does not destroy the civilization, only perhaps the government), for if they were, then no civilizations can ever advance beyond their beginning, since is it usually in that early stage that a government is most volatile as it tries to establish some order over the people. In fact, many times, a governmental collapse happens due to a change in the ideas and sentiments of its subjects due to racial admixture, since a race repulses the racial elements foreign to itself, and cannot tolerate laws that do not reflect its internal state, which means rulers are free to impose what we rakes they want, but have to harmonize with their subjects and not break the rule of going beyond what they can tolerate. The other common theory of civilizational decay, that being of moral depravity, can neither be true, since not only are there plenty of civilizations that survive in spite of their moral depravity, some were brought to their highest heights by their moral depravity (like the Phoenicians who built their whole empire on thievery). Aztecs only saw a collapse of their civilization due to Spanish conquest, and subsequent Spanish intermixing with the Mexica, and other groups like the Zapotecs. Comte Arthur de Gobineau asserts towards the ending of this volume that there only really 10 civilizations in world history, and that they are of White origin, though some emerge out to a mixture of Whites with Yellows and Blacks (I have to analyze the next volume to swing one way or the other). Contrary to what many may assume, although he does say that the White race constitutes the smartest, strongest, and most beautiful race, he does not reduce the Black and Yellow races to having no exceptional marks whatsoever. He says for instance that the Yellow races are more ideal than the White races when it comes to having a stable and well-functioning middle class (modern-day China alone can vindicate this claim, for they have a middle-class superior to even that of the United States of America), and that the Black races have a superior sense of smell and taste (in the sense that they are not picky and can handle repugnant odors better than the others, and they have more power in their sense of smell and taste), however, the Comte argues that this unveils their inferiority to some degree since animals are hardly any different in this respect (pigs will eat almost anything for instance, Mafiosos fed dead bodies to pigs for a reason), it logically follows that the more picky you are, and the developed your sense of disgust is, the more superior you are to the others (yay me). Comte Arthur de Gobineau does not suggest that any of the secondary types have been able to maintain their respective purity, and that in fact only tertiary and quaternary types persist. Mulattos are a quaternary type for instance, and the French a tertiary type. Comte Arthur de Gobineau constitutes a prophet of tragedy, not of comedy, and so perhaps Friedrich Nietzsche may appreciate the Comte (read “The Birth of Tragedy”), most will not, just like the Prophets of the Old Testament who foretold of evils were not generally liked by their contemporaries. Comte Arthur de Gobineau does not think that we can reverse this degeneration that comes about through racial admixture, and ergo this book is really a tragedy about humanity. It cannot be reasonably said that the Comte merely wants to hype himself up, since he acknowledges the inferiority of Frenchmen (like himself) to others in certain realms; for instance, he says Italians are the most beautiful race, but he does acknowledge the superiority of the Frenchman in endurance. Although the Christian religion can bring a people into their total capacity for civilization by reducing the detriments that hold a people back, it cannot exalt that capacity itself. Religion, and specifically the correct religion, does constitute a civilizing power, but race constitutes the primary civilizing power. The more pure a civilization can keep its race, the easier it is for it to survive, even under foreign dominion (the Polish civilization did not cease under Russian and Prussian occupation, and in fact the Polish nationalist sentiments were brought new life by their oppression; the Comte says the Spanish are the most nationalist of all European peoples by the way, this checks out). Racial differences are permanent in an individual of some race (they only change collectively through admixture), and cannot be brought up some ladder of infinite progress like in Whig thinking. We are finite beings, we cannot educate ourselves infinitely, or exalt our finite capacities when we are subject to said capacities. Evidence of this constitutes the American Indian who had societies right next to the industries United States of America, and did not show an ounce of developing a civilization of their own, showing it actually repulses their racial sentiments; the Comte does not suggest that the peoples who have no civilization (like the more pure Black types) are non-human or anything like that (for he accepts the questionable theory that a species constitutes a set of creatures who can generally have fertile offspring with one another), and he accepts (like I do) that they can certainly be brought to the light of religion, and even be able to imitate civilization to some degree, but that they cannot make one of their own given that they have not the sufficient admixture. Comte Arthur de Gobineau actually says that the mixing of White types with Yellow and Black types is a good thing, in that it lifts up the Yellow and Black types (in Hispanic America, this idea was known as “mejorando la raza: bettering the race”); the Comte acknowledges that Mulattos can make great lawyers and doctors, but that their Black strain repulses their White strain and vice a versa, and that we ought to expect to observe elements of both. Comte Arthur de Gobineau debunks the idea that the physical environment constitutes the primary prerequisite of civilizing power, since the peoples with the racial elements necessary, shape the physical environment to their will anyway (like the early Roman, or the Chinese), and that when the inferior civilizing types are given by nature great physical environments, that they still do not begin a civilization. Tragedy emerges out of the mixing, in that although the inferior civilizing types are brought up, the strain of civilizing power throughout humanity as a whole, is brought down. Also, the White races are inferior to their ancestors in every natural realm; the Comte finds this tragedy inevitable due to the conquering spirit of the White types particularly, in that they conquer and then mix with the conquered, bringing down the quality of their conquering blood. There are many more things that can be said about this seminal work, but my summary and analysis by this stage can suffice plenty in their desire to have an understanding about this book.
June 1, 2023
Libro interesante por la maligna falacia que representa.
Desde luego producto de una mente brillante pero abyecta, que utilizó amplios conocimientos para justificar una idea errónea y maligna, como es fundamentar la supremacía blanca, misma que después de unos años y gracias a autores como este, alguna mente más abyecta los creyó reales y causó una guerra sin precedentes, en la que la propia raza blanca supuestamente superior, asesino por razones raciales y por otra parte creó las armas de destrucción masiva que ahora asolan al mundo.
Falases razonamientos justifican la supuesta supremacía blanca según el autor, quien después de dar unas amplias lecciones de historia y reconocer maravillándose de las civilizaciones no blancas como ASIRIA, INDIA, EGIPTO, AZTECA E INCA, hace aparecer de la chistera sin explicación alguna a un supuesto ascendiente blanco en todas las culturas, aún en China y America, a efecto de justificar las grandes civilizaciones que crearo.
El caso de America es hilarante, supuestamente los americanos son descendientes de la raza amarilla, lo que es muy posible, debido a la teoría del estrecho de Bering, pero según el autor los que llegaron eran proscritos o vagabundos incapaces de crear civilización, lo cual es una contradicción, después de que el autor se maravilla ante China, pero continuó, según al autor llegaron en el siglo X los pobladores de los pueblos escandinavos, lo que es posible y se está probando, pero dice que gracias a ese contacto con la raza blanca, cinco siglos después los aztecas, mayas, incas, etc pudieron crear las civilizaciones que lo maravillaron, lo cual es irreal tomando en cuenta que en el siglo X los pueblos escandinavos eran una bola de bárbaros tal y cual el autor lo reconoce.
En fin cómo está innumerables contradicciones que causan desde risa hasta tristeza.
Desde luego producto de una mente brillante pero abyecta, que utilizó amplios conocimientos para justificar una idea errónea y maligna, como es fundamentar la supremacía blanca, misma que después de unos años y gracias a autores como este, alguna mente más abyecta los creyó reales y causó una guerra sin precedentes, en la que la propia raza blanca supuestamente superior, asesino por razones raciales y por otra parte creó las armas de destrucción masiva que ahora asolan al mundo.
Falases razonamientos justifican la supuesta supremacía blanca según el autor, quien después de dar unas amplias lecciones de historia y reconocer maravillándose de las civilizaciones no blancas como ASIRIA, INDIA, EGIPTO, AZTECA E INCA, hace aparecer de la chistera sin explicación alguna a un supuesto ascendiente blanco en todas las culturas, aún en China y America, a efecto de justificar las grandes civilizaciones que crearo.
El caso de America es hilarante, supuestamente los americanos son descendientes de la raza amarilla, lo que es muy posible, debido a la teoría del estrecho de Bering, pero según el autor los que llegaron eran proscritos o vagabundos incapaces de crear civilización, lo cual es una contradicción, después de que el autor se maravilla ante China, pero continuó, según al autor llegaron en el siglo X los pobladores de los pueblos escandinavos, lo que es posible y se está probando, pero dice que gracias a ese contacto con la raza blanca, cinco siglos después los aztecas, mayas, incas, etc pudieron crear las civilizaciones que lo maravillaron, lo cual es irreal tomando en cuenta que en el siglo X los pueblos escandinavos eran una bola de bárbaros tal y cual el autor lo reconoce.
En fin cómo está innumerables contradicciones que causan desde risa hasta tristeza.
May 22, 2025
A splash of cold water in the face of the cyclical historian who really thinks that Hesiod's Four Ages are more significant for the maintenance and progress of civilisation than human genetics. This is both an extremely historically pessimistic and eugenically hopeful book:
"I think I now have all the data necessary for grappling with the problem of the life and death of nations; and I can say positively that a people will never die, if it remains eternally composed of the same national elements. If the empire of Darius had, at the battle of Arbela, been able to fill its ranks with Persians, that is to say with real Aryans; if the Romans of the later Empire had had a Senate and an army of the same stock as that which existed at the time of the Fabii, their dominion would never have come to an end. So long as they kept the same purity of blood, the Persians and Romans would have lived and reigned. In the long run, it might be said, a conqueror, more irresistible than they, would have appeared on the scene; and they would have fallen under a well-directed attack, or a long siege, or simply by the fortune of a single battle. Yes, a State might be overthrown in this way, but not a civilization or a social organism. Invasion and defeat are but the dark clouds that for a time blot out the day, and then pass over. Many examples might be brought forward in proof of this."
"I think I now have all the data necessary for grappling with the problem of the life and death of nations; and I can say positively that a people will never die, if it remains eternally composed of the same national elements. If the empire of Darius had, at the battle of Arbela, been able to fill its ranks with Persians, that is to say with real Aryans; if the Romans of the later Empire had had a Senate and an army of the same stock as that which existed at the time of the Fabii, their dominion would never have come to an end. So long as they kept the same purity of blood, the Persians and Romans would have lived and reigned. In the long run, it might be said, a conqueror, more irresistible than they, would have appeared on the scene; and they would have fallen under a well-directed attack, or a long siege, or simply by the fortune of a single battle. Yes, a State might be overthrown in this way, but not a civilization or a social organism. Invasion and defeat are but the dark clouds that for a time blot out the day, and then pass over. Many examples might be brought forward in proof of this."
March 12, 2025
Who knew what evil lurks in the hearts of people– and nations? Gobineau Knew, in the Inequality of Human Races.
Arthur de Gobineau might not be a household name in the English-speaking world, but his idea of Aryan supremacism remains a specter that haunts the liberal art world. From the cell of San Quentin to the scientific fiction of H. G. Wells; from the Leftist circles who sought to discredit biologists with "scientific racism" to the self-victimizing Conservatives that internalized their anger of the degeneration of the West, you can see the long shadow of Aryan supremacism.
This book started it all.
The Inequality of Human Races is more like a pamphlet than a serious scientific research paper. It is divided into many parts: it explains why nature is more important than nurture in fostering civilization, why the environment, institutions, and Christianity played a much smaller role in shaping civilization, and finally, why the civilization degeneracy was caused by race mixing.
I have to point out that this book has zero scientific or archaeological merit, but I highly recommend this book to two kinds of people: liberal arts majors and scientists who want to debunk pseudoscience.
A liberal arts major can learn about how a well-crafted propaganda works by reading Gobineau's writing. Instead of backing up his "evidence" mentioned above with serious scientific work, Gobineau drew more inspiration from classic literature and history. He used a broad range of case studies that might be unprofessional but widely recognized: The Aryan rule of pre-Islamic Persia and India, the Moorish rule of Iberia, the Jesuit colony in Uruguay, the Dominica-Haiti divide, the Sandwich Islands, and mostly, the Fall of Rome. Even today, those case studies are widely referenced by Western writers; he might not have invented any original idea, but he carefully integrated all those separate, irrelevant narratives into one holistic narrative, under the flag of the Aryan theory. Such a cherry-picking version of history not only misguided scientists who are unaware of their bias, but also Leftists, ethnic study professors, and gender study people, who insisted that Western scientists constructed the concept of race to dominate the non-Westerners. They are all victims of Gobineau who fabricated non-existing science based on classic and medieval literature, well-known Western references, and their own biases.
The scientists who are interested in debunking pseudo-science can also learn from this book, not by its pseudo-science but its rhetoric. The idea of Semitic and Hamitic "races" has long been debunked by genetic studies. However, Gobineau made many arguments that are impossible to prove or disprove. For instance, he claimed that Sub-Saharan Africans lacked great civilization in Africa and then concluded that sub-Saharan Africans lacked the biological capacity to run a political system invented by White people. Before his conclusion, he brought up the counterargument that well-educated Black people existed, but there is a difference between imitation and civilization. Yes, archaeologists might debunk Gobineau's claim by saying Africans had pre-colonial civilizations, and biologists might debunk the intelligence argument by finding out overachieving African diasporas. However, Gobineau's core argument of imitation/civilization cannot be debunked by science because it is more of a concept widely accepted by his targeted audiences than scientific facts.
Gobineau's work teaches more about his target audiences than biology, anthropology, or philosophy. The arguments Gobineau used were anachronic or even laughable in the 21st-century readers' eyes. However, it reveals how their targeted audiences think and wish the world to be, like Sayyid Qutb's Milestones or Ted Kaczynski's Industrial Society and Its Future. For those who want to understand why pseudoscience never dies after its theories have been debunked, this book will answer why.
Arthur de Gobineau might not be a household name in the English-speaking world, but his idea of Aryan supremacism remains a specter that haunts the liberal art world. From the cell of San Quentin to the scientific fiction of H. G. Wells; from the Leftist circles who sought to discredit biologists with "scientific racism" to the self-victimizing Conservatives that internalized their anger of the degeneration of the West, you can see the long shadow of Aryan supremacism.
This book started it all.
The Inequality of Human Races is more like a pamphlet than a serious scientific research paper. It is divided into many parts: it explains why nature is more important than nurture in fostering civilization, why the environment, institutions, and Christianity played a much smaller role in shaping civilization, and finally, why the civilization degeneracy was caused by race mixing.
I have to point out that this book has zero scientific or archaeological merit, but I highly recommend this book to two kinds of people: liberal arts majors and scientists who want to debunk pseudoscience.
A liberal arts major can learn about how a well-crafted propaganda works by reading Gobineau's writing. Instead of backing up his "evidence" mentioned above with serious scientific work, Gobineau drew more inspiration from classic literature and history. He used a broad range of case studies that might be unprofessional but widely recognized: The Aryan rule of pre-Islamic Persia and India, the Moorish rule of Iberia, the Jesuit colony in Uruguay, the Dominica-Haiti divide, the Sandwich Islands, and mostly, the Fall of Rome. Even today, those case studies are widely referenced by Western writers; he might not have invented any original idea, but he carefully integrated all those separate, irrelevant narratives into one holistic narrative, under the flag of the Aryan theory. Such a cherry-picking version of history not only misguided scientists who are unaware of their bias, but also Leftists, ethnic study professors, and gender study people, who insisted that Western scientists constructed the concept of race to dominate the non-Westerners. They are all victims of Gobineau who fabricated non-existing science based on classic and medieval literature, well-known Western references, and their own biases.
The scientists who are interested in debunking pseudo-science can also learn from this book, not by its pseudo-science but its rhetoric. The idea of Semitic and Hamitic "races" has long been debunked by genetic studies. However, Gobineau made many arguments that are impossible to prove or disprove. For instance, he claimed that Sub-Saharan Africans lacked great civilization in Africa and then concluded that sub-Saharan Africans lacked the biological capacity to run a political system invented by White people. Before his conclusion, he brought up the counterargument that well-educated Black people existed, but there is a difference between imitation and civilization. Yes, archaeologists might debunk Gobineau's claim by saying Africans had pre-colonial civilizations, and biologists might debunk the intelligence argument by finding out overachieving African diasporas. However, Gobineau's core argument of imitation/civilization cannot be debunked by science because it is more of a concept widely accepted by his targeted audiences than scientific facts.
Gobineau's work teaches more about his target audiences than biology, anthropology, or philosophy. The arguments Gobineau used were anachronic or even laughable in the 21st-century readers' eyes. However, it reveals how their targeted audiences think and wish the world to be, like Sayyid Qutb's Milestones or Ted Kaczynski's Industrial Society and Its Future. For those who want to understand why pseudoscience never dies after its theories have been debunked, this book will answer why.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
November 20, 2022Comment:
Not nearly the raving anti-semite that his later admirers came to be.
'And what did the Jews become, in this miserable corner of the earth? They became a people that succeeded in everything it undertook, a free, strong, and intelligent people, and one which, before it lost, sword in hand, the name of an independent nation, had given as many learned men to the world as it had merchants. (p. 59)'
The 'Three Great Races' that Gobineau is concerned with are the White, Yellow and Black Races.
So you see, there really was once a split in the racist camp over the question whether the Jews are 'us or them'. (I believe Lothard Stoddard is, more or less, another example of racism sans anti-semitism.) However, especially since the Nazis and also the creation of Israel, I think all contemporary racists are also anti-semites. Anyone know any counter-examples?
Not nearly the raving anti-semite that his later admirers came to be.
'And what did the Jews become, in this miserable corner of the earth? They became a people that succeeded in everything it undertook, a free, strong, and intelligent people, and one which, before it lost, sword in hand, the name of an independent nation, had given as many learned men to the world as it had merchants. (p. 59)'
The 'Three Great Races' that Gobineau is concerned with are the White, Yellow and Black Races.
So you see, there really was once a split in the racist camp over the question whether the Jews are 'us or them'. (I believe Lothard Stoddard is, more or less, another example of racism sans anti-semitism.) However, especially since the Nazis and also the creation of Israel, I think all contemporary racists are also anti-semites. Anyone know any counter-examples?
June 4, 2025
I gave this a chance because I figured since I'm getting into anthropology it wouldn't do any good to ignore the discipline's scientific racist roots and something might be gleaned from this tome.
Instead, I was left sorely disappointed.
An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races is only worth reading as a historical document. Nothing can be gained from reading it except an appreciation for the rather bizarre arguments that underpinned the racial supremacist beliefs of Gobineau's day.
Despite it's short length the essay was rather boring and it took me a whole month to finish it merely because I had lost interest in Gobineau's dry and nonsensical rhetoric.
Strictly for historical and educational purposes, otherwise the book has little to offer the common reader.
Instead, I was left sorely disappointed.
An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races is only worth reading as a historical document. Nothing can be gained from reading it except an appreciation for the rather bizarre arguments that underpinned the racial supremacist beliefs of Gobineau's day.
Despite it's short length the essay was rather boring and it took me a whole month to finish it merely because I had lost interest in Gobineau's dry and nonsensical rhetoric.
Strictly for historical and educational purposes, otherwise the book has little to offer the common reader.
September 12, 2023
It's a book about old school racialism. Refresher if you're into Human Biodiversity. Read with the imagination of the zeitgeist and you'll learn to appreciate it. If you don't believe or can't accept that there are human races I don't recommend it. Second, if you cannot appreciate the taste of Aristocratic words from a real competent French diplomat who had governed with great success, then I don't recommend it either. Overall, I personally really enjoyed it.
May 17, 2022
French right-wingers are generally more interesting than right-wingers from the Anglosphere, I’ve found. Something about that always-the-bridesmaid-never-the-bride thing- they never really wound up in charge, the only time they came close was Vichy, a parody of French nationalism installed by their worst enemies… and the worst part was, by that time, that parody probably was the best they could do. Among other things, French right-wing thought is interesting because it’s diverse, which means it never coalesced around one movement or figurehead, not even Papa Petain.
So the work of the Comte de Gobineau, one of the fathers of “scientific” racism, is better than it has any right to be… but still not “good.” An aristocrat who was buddies and pen pals with that other big French aristocratic intellectual name of his era, Alexis de Tocqueville (your original liberal-chud pairing, like how some left-libs pat the likes of Dreher or whoever on the head now sometimes?), the Gobineaus were pretty big losers during the Revolution. Not big enough, if you ask me, but apparently Mama Gobineau started defrauding people to keep little Artie in book money, and you gotta figure that “defraud” might be a euphemism for selling what she had to sell, so…
He’s pissed! He’s pissed at society for being insufficiently deferential to its betters, and pissed at all the theories that imply either equality of peoples, or that inequality is the product of environment, ideas, or any of that (needless to say, the idea that hierarchy might not be the best way to order our comparative understandings of society doesn’t enter into his head, or, to be fair, most nineteenth century heads). He has a good old time showing the many inconsistencies in various theories of history from Herodotus to Rousseau to contemporaries like Guizot. They had a lot of them, as theories of history, and especially theories of history before people really knew how to do archival research, often do. This is the best part of the book.
But then he goes into his big theory of history. It’s all blood, people! Good blood, bad blood (you know I’ve had my share/my woman left home with a brown-eyed man/and I actually really care a lot because his brown eyes are a sign of racial impurity etc etc). All of civilization comes from a small coterie of people with good blood, and most of that good blood comes from “Aryans,” that horrible conceptual gift the advance of linguistics accidentally gave to the world. Why, then, do “civilizations rise and fall,” as one of the central question of nineteenth century thought somewhat unhelpfully put it? Because good blood mingled with the bad blood it conquered! Thereby diluting the bloodlines, thereby leading to the decline of civilization. Gobineau also makes entirely clear he’s talking about France- the nobles, his people, had Germanic Aryan blood, the peasants had Celtic blood, and those peasants only got the better of the nobles because the nobles mixed blood and became degenerate.
This is stupid, and has about the kind of “evidence” behind it as you’d expect, but the kind of stupid that proves, for lack of a better word, “catchy” with some kind of people. It doesn’t convince so much as it burrows a groove in the head of those who want such a groove there. It has embedded in numerous projects into which stupid people with mental energy to spare can invest themselves. They can try to chart where exactly the blood went wrong, or try to explain China, Japan, the Mayans, or whichever non-whites they find impressive as being, somehow, Aryan. They can try to come up with schemes to preserve that blood, which almost always involve shedding somebody else’s.
Interestingly, Gobineau didn’t have an issue with the Jews. He sees them as a strong race, as possibly Aryan even! There’s no big puppet master behind decline, in Gobineau’s book- just horny aristocratic conquerors and hustling low-borns. It makes you wonder why, if they’re such hot shit, the master races can’t maintain, but that’s sort of part of what makes French reaction both smarter and less able to take power than the versions you see in the Anglosphere and in Germany. The latter often say they have a tragic sensibility, but with one or two exceptions, they don’t. Gobineau’s work is spiky with hatred — for black people, for the masses in general, and especially for intellectuals who think the masses are anything other than dross — but it’s also basically resigned to the inevitable tragedy that is life. It’s a stupid, needlessly cruel, and ultimately self-flattering version of tragedy, but at least connects up to it, somewhere, and French reactionary thought from Maistre to Celine to Faye does a lot with that, or anyway, more than other (one is tempted to say “more Aryan,” from the ironically-named Rosenberg to Breivik) do.
Of course, a Hitler is always in the wings to gussy it up and give violent racists something to do other than ponder the tragedies of decline and horniness, and that’s how you get the inevitable blood-farces of reaction. C’est la vie, as Gobineau might sigh to his pen pal Tocqueville. *’
So the work of the Comte de Gobineau, one of the fathers of “scientific” racism, is better than it has any right to be… but still not “good.” An aristocrat who was buddies and pen pals with that other big French aristocratic intellectual name of his era, Alexis de Tocqueville (your original liberal-chud pairing, like how some left-libs pat the likes of Dreher or whoever on the head now sometimes?), the Gobineaus were pretty big losers during the Revolution. Not big enough, if you ask me, but apparently Mama Gobineau started defrauding people to keep little Artie in book money, and you gotta figure that “defraud” might be a euphemism for selling what she had to sell, so…
He’s pissed! He’s pissed at society for being insufficiently deferential to its betters, and pissed at all the theories that imply either equality of peoples, or that inequality is the product of environment, ideas, or any of that (needless to say, the idea that hierarchy might not be the best way to order our comparative understandings of society doesn’t enter into his head, or, to be fair, most nineteenth century heads). He has a good old time showing the many inconsistencies in various theories of history from Herodotus to Rousseau to contemporaries like Guizot. They had a lot of them, as theories of history, and especially theories of history before people really knew how to do archival research, often do. This is the best part of the book.
But then he goes into his big theory of history. It’s all blood, people! Good blood, bad blood (you know I’ve had my share/my woman left home with a brown-eyed man/and I actually really care a lot because his brown eyes are a sign of racial impurity etc etc). All of civilization comes from a small coterie of people with good blood, and most of that good blood comes from “Aryans,” that horrible conceptual gift the advance of linguistics accidentally gave to the world. Why, then, do “civilizations rise and fall,” as one of the central question of nineteenth century thought somewhat unhelpfully put it? Because good blood mingled with the bad blood it conquered! Thereby diluting the bloodlines, thereby leading to the decline of civilization. Gobineau also makes entirely clear he’s talking about France- the nobles, his people, had Germanic Aryan blood, the peasants had Celtic blood, and those peasants only got the better of the nobles because the nobles mixed blood and became degenerate.
This is stupid, and has about the kind of “evidence” behind it as you’d expect, but the kind of stupid that proves, for lack of a better word, “catchy” with some kind of people. It doesn’t convince so much as it burrows a groove in the head of those who want such a groove there. It has embedded in numerous projects into which stupid people with mental energy to spare can invest themselves. They can try to chart where exactly the blood went wrong, or try to explain China, Japan, the Mayans, or whichever non-whites they find impressive as being, somehow, Aryan. They can try to come up with schemes to preserve that blood, which almost always involve shedding somebody else’s.
Interestingly, Gobineau didn’t have an issue with the Jews. He sees them as a strong race, as possibly Aryan even! There’s no big puppet master behind decline, in Gobineau’s book- just horny aristocratic conquerors and hustling low-borns. It makes you wonder why, if they’re such hot shit, the master races can’t maintain, but that’s sort of part of what makes French reaction both smarter and less able to take power than the versions you see in the Anglosphere and in Germany. The latter often say they have a tragic sensibility, but with one or two exceptions, they don’t. Gobineau’s work is spiky with hatred — for black people, for the masses in general, and especially for intellectuals who think the masses are anything other than dross — but it’s also basically resigned to the inevitable tragedy that is life. It’s a stupid, needlessly cruel, and ultimately self-flattering version of tragedy, but at least connects up to it, somewhere, and French reactionary thought from Maistre to Celine to Faye does a lot with that, or anyway, more than other (one is tempted to say “more Aryan,” from the ironically-named Rosenberg to Breivik) do.
Of course, a Hitler is always in the wings to gussy it up and give violent racists something to do other than ponder the tragedies of decline and horniness, and that’s how you get the inevitable blood-farces of reaction. C’est la vie, as Gobineau might sigh to his pen pal Tocqueville. *’
April 2, 2023
Nothing really new here. I read this mainly due to it being cited by so many people.
Read
January 9, 2025One of the sickest mindsets I ever saw. No wonder he is considered as one of the fathers of Nazism.
Read
July 28, 2025kant but stupid, equally evil though
February 1, 2025
⭐⭐⭐⭐Really Good.
January 20, 2023
Türkçe çevirisi o kadar kötü ki okumam mümkün olmadı. B1 seviyesinde olan ingilizcemle, İngilizce çevirisini daha anlayarak okudum. “Bazıları terakki yoluna revan oldular.” Bu cümleyi 2021’de kuran bir tek bu kitabın mütercimidir! Hakkında hiçbir bilgi de bulamadım dinozor beyin!
March 15, 2022
Es un libro difícil de leer. Algunas partes las leí rápidamente, otras me sumergí en el pensamiento del autor. Es complejo, rebuscado y con un único objetivo que no lo dejaré escrito aquí. Cada lector concluirá pero por cultura general, está bien leerlo.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews