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The Passing of the Great Race or the Racial Basis of European History
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
148 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1916
About the author
Madison Grant
57 books39 followersMadison Grant was a lawyer, historian, racial theorist, eugenicist and anthropologist, known primarily for his work as a conservationist and eugenicist, notably contributing to the "Nordic migration theory" and the concept of a "master race."
Grant played an active role in wildlife and environment preservation as well in diverse philanthropic organizations, and was an staunch supporter of immigration restriction and anti-miscegenation laws.
Grant played an active role in wildlife and environment preservation as well in diverse philanthropic organizations, and was an staunch supporter of immigration restriction and anti-miscegenation laws.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
March 24, 2011
Probably the greatest anthropological examination of European racial history. If you enjoy the works of Lothrop Stoddard and/or Hans F. K. Günther, you will love "The Passing of the Great Race."
Apparently, Adolf Hitler was such a fan of this book that he wrote Madison Grant a fan letter. I find that to be odd considering Grant claims that only a small fraction of modern Germans are of the pure Nordic type. Although Germany was originally purely Nordic - disastrous wars (the Thirty Years' War wiped out around 2/3 of the German population) and the immigration of Slavic/Alpine types - completely changed the racial population of the country in just a couple centuries. The Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries are the only regions in the world that still have Nordic majority populations.
Anyways, "The Passing of the Great Race" is especially interesting when you put it in context with today. Grant's worst fears were realized in a manner that far exceeded his pessimistic anticipations.
Apparently, Adolf Hitler was such a fan of this book that he wrote Madison Grant a fan letter. I find that to be odd considering Grant claims that only a small fraction of modern Germans are of the pure Nordic type. Although Germany was originally purely Nordic - disastrous wars (the Thirty Years' War wiped out around 2/3 of the German population) and the immigration of Slavic/Alpine types - completely changed the racial population of the country in just a couple centuries. The Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries are the only regions in the world that still have Nordic majority populations.
Anyways, "The Passing of the Great Race" is especially interesting when you put it in context with today. Grant's worst fears were realized in a manner that far exceeded his pessimistic anticipations.
October 31, 2012
This is a must-have book for anyone who supports white supremacy, eugenics, and racism. It really deserves one star for it's completely irrational and misguided claims about racial taxonomies, its pseudo-science and its historical inaccuracies. But I bumped it up a little for its historical and philosophical significance because from those perspectives it's really fascinating - if horrifying - to read about how people actually thought about race a hundred years ago and more.
December 17, 2018
A disturbing book to read when considering that Madison Grant was a strong influencer of the early eugenicists in the USA (Davenport most specifically) and that his unscientific musings on the use of skulls shape and language as evidence of racial superiority and weakness. The causal way in which he makes sweeping conclusions about the need to control populations in favor of "the Great Race" is truly scary.
January 5, 2021
Tripe. The fact that this sort of pseudoscience still informs some people’s opinions today is pathetic. But I’m glad I read it. Know your enemy.
Want to Read
December 12, 2025I am listening to American historian Heather Cox Richardson (one of my absolute favorite guides to the present moment, writing A Letter From An American EVERY DAY of this current administration), on Substack live with JoJo Jerz talking about this vile book that is approved by, one guide for, Project 2025 and some remaining folks in the MAGA crowd but not by a majority of Americans, and surely not the majority of the world.
HCR thinks that democracy ultimately wins over a few old white men wanting to stay in power, noting the plummeting ratings and the worsening authoritarian clown show, though she admits things will get worse before they get better.
HCR thinks that democracy ultimately wins over a few old white men wanting to stay in power, noting the plummeting ratings and the worsening authoritarian clown show, though she admits things will get worse before they get better.
January 17, 2025
Well, this book changed my mind. I consider myself a race realist, and so naturally subscribe to the major racial divisions of mankind (i.e. caucasoid, negroid, mongoloid, etc) as propounded in the works of Charles Darwin, Carleton Coon, and J. Philippe Rushton. However, I rejected Nordicism and in general the concept of sub-races, such as Alpines. But Madison Grant argues and explains the subject so well that he convinced me. Ideologically, the basic racial groupings are essential to have as a concept (Nordicism instead of pan-Europeanism hindered rather than helped the Third Reich), but in reality the course of human evolution is so much more complex, so layered. It's not black and white, it's a garden of forking paths. Think how rich our understanding of history and biology would be if only modern scientists weren't flat earthers on the subject of race. The true diversity of the human race and its myriad peoples and their cultures (not the melting pot multiculturalist conformist consumerist faux-diversity that Grant saw coming and inveighed against) is truly beautiful and astounding.
August 17, 2020
Madison Grant’s Passing of the Great Race is a must read for anyone wishing to learn about 20th century racialism. The book is short and sweet, getting straight to the point without much complication. He primarily focuses on the Nordic race, its characteristics, and how it has “fell” from dominance in Europe. While reading it, you should take into consideration the era of which it was written, for many of his points or examples are now obsolete.
August 3, 2020
anyone who doesn’t believe that this book has been the basis for Western policy for the last 75 years either hasn’t read it or hasn’t turned their head from side to side and looked around.
April 10, 2022
A weird mixture of phrenology, social Darwinism, and anthropology for the sole purpose of establishing the superiority of the "Nordic" race and justification of eugenics in maintaining the purity of races. The book is mostly based on obsolete evolutionary and genetic concepts (hereditary mental and physical characteristics preserved through copulation in the same racial groups ) and a rather chaotic description of cultural influences through the history of mankind. I started to read to book for the sole purpose of finding intellectual ideas present in the contemporary right-wing terrorism and the growing "eco-fascist" movement, but unfortunately didn't find any, so the book is only valuable as a historical account of early American fascination with eugenics.
August 22, 2026
A fantastically "just-so" book: things are ordered exactly as Grant wishes them to be, he just makes up whatever conditions he needs to knit things together. He marshals an impressive amount of facts and scholarship to an entirely useless aim. It's not that he doesn't know historical facts (in part), and it's not that he doesn't know anthropological facts (in part). It's that he has no *coherent, rational* models to knit everything together, other than his obviously deeply felt prejudices, in all senses of that word. He supposes the existence of events and contacts and movements without support, neglects the facts that contradict his models, and emphasises beyond all reason heredity over environment (as racists do). Grant uses his hand-waving to order the "races" of the world, and big spoiler: the tall, fair people are on top, the short, dark people are on the bottom, and the middle is occupied by vast numbers of the, and this is a quote, "suspiciously swarthy". He also doesn't like universal suffrage, socialists, labor unions, or Jews, none of which were a surprise given that, you know, he's a racist asshole.
For Grant, nearly anything good in history happened because of the superior race, no matter where it occurred. Humans originated in Asia, not Africa. "Aryan" peoples from Asia arose from secondary Nordic invasions. The past genius of the Greeks is evidence of the superior race being more widespread in the past than now. Renaissance geniuses? All "Nordic-type". Plenty of vile opinions about the countries and peoples of the modern-day (100 years ago) Europe, Western Hemisphere, and Asia. And so on. It's like those people who 100% believe (and the near- and long-dead who believed) against all possible evidence that Jesus was actually tall and blue-eyed.
Apart from this, Grant doesn't understand inheritance. A lot of people didn't at this time. The problem is that like his history and archaeology, his lack of knowledge of inheritance is handled not with caution, or even biased caution, but only with hand-wavy bias. The irony here, and this was *not* beyond the science of the time to understand, is that his model of a superior race this fragile in terms of inheritance and with this predisposition to put itself in harm's way doing the hard things because of its superiority -- his title refers (p168) to the dying of "Nordics" in the Great War -- would result in its not having much persistence at all. He seems to understand this, but not the irony, as he is continually talking about the need for protective breeding. The supposed hardiness is just not.
Lest those who discover this book think it represented some suppressed consensus of the past, Grant was considered quite an outlier at the time. Sure, there were plenty of racist anthropologists and historians, but even they thought Grant bent the facts and the history much too far.
For Grant, nearly anything good in history happened because of the superior race, no matter where it occurred. Humans originated in Asia, not Africa. "Aryan" peoples from Asia arose from secondary Nordic invasions. The past genius of the Greeks is evidence of the superior race being more widespread in the past than now. Renaissance geniuses? All "Nordic-type". Plenty of vile opinions about the countries and peoples of the modern-day (100 years ago) Europe, Western Hemisphere, and Asia. And so on. It's like those people who 100% believe (and the near- and long-dead who believed) against all possible evidence that Jesus was actually tall and blue-eyed.
Apart from this, Grant doesn't understand inheritance. A lot of people didn't at this time. The problem is that like his history and archaeology, his lack of knowledge of inheritance is handled not with caution, or even biased caution, but only with hand-wavy bias. The irony here, and this was *not* beyond the science of the time to understand, is that his model of a superior race this fragile in terms of inheritance and with this predisposition to put itself in harm's way doing the hard things because of its superiority -- his title refers (p168) to the dying of "Nordics" in the Great War -- would result in its not having much persistence at all. He seems to understand this, but not the irony, as he is continually talking about the need for protective breeding. The supposed hardiness is just not.
Lest those who discover this book think it represented some suppressed consensus of the past, Grant was considered quite an outlier at the time. Sure, there were plenty of racist anthropologists and historians, but even they thought Grant bent the facts and the history much too far.
March 25, 2016
Although fundamentally flawed - very refreshing!
April 5, 2021
A huge inspiration to me, although I cannot recommned it to other readers. Historically significant but very antiquated. I do recommend looking into modern day research on this topic.
July 29, 2020
A concise, but antiquated overview of European physical anthropology.
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November 11, 2021read about 54 pages for class to analyze Eugenics movement; do not think I could read any more of this...
December 20, 2023
I picked up this book at the same time as I read “White Fragility”, two books dealing with racist themes but from very opposite viewpoints.
While this book has the worse reputation, it’s mainly concerned with cataloging types of various European peoples. He puts Nordics at the top followed by Mediterraneans and Alpines and mentions the histories, accomplishments, and tribal background of each.
Grant is from a time that was interested in human evolution and he shows that by attempting to justify his opinions by backing them up with “science.” Much of what he writes is just silly but there are plenty of interesting historical anecdotes that are basically forgotten knowledge.
If you’re interested in how people thought about history, historically, it’s worth picking up for that reason alone.
According to Grant I’m “Alpine”, and I have to admit I got a kick out of reading this because I had just been to an animal sanctuary for dingos and the host explained that there are desert dingos, with long legs and big ears, versus alpine dingos who evolved in the mountains, and have short legs and bushy tails. As I had no trouble traveling up and down the hills of the sanctuary within our tour group she jokingly called me an “Alpine dingo”, in contrast with my “Desert dingo” boyfriend whose long legs forced him to expend extra energy to clamber over the rocky landscape.
Who knew that my affinity for mountains and ability to scramble over rocks would be so readily apparent to both biology professionals and out-of-date racial theorists? While I don’t think we should laud this book, there’s obviously something there.
While this book has the worse reputation, it’s mainly concerned with cataloging types of various European peoples. He puts Nordics at the top followed by Mediterraneans and Alpines and mentions the histories, accomplishments, and tribal background of each.
Grant is from a time that was interested in human evolution and he shows that by attempting to justify his opinions by backing them up with “science.” Much of what he writes is just silly but there are plenty of interesting historical anecdotes that are basically forgotten knowledge.
If you’re interested in how people thought about history, historically, it’s worth picking up for that reason alone.
According to Grant I’m “Alpine”, and I have to admit I got a kick out of reading this because I had just been to an animal sanctuary for dingos and the host explained that there are desert dingos, with long legs and big ears, versus alpine dingos who evolved in the mountains, and have short legs and bushy tails. As I had no trouble traveling up and down the hills of the sanctuary within our tour group she jokingly called me an “Alpine dingo”, in contrast with my “Desert dingo” boyfriend whose long legs forced him to expend extra energy to clamber over the rocky landscape.
Who knew that my affinity for mountains and ability to scramble over rocks would be so readily apparent to both biology professionals and out-of-date racial theorists? While I don’t think we should laud this book, there’s obviously something there.
March 2, 2025
This book is amazing, I was always confused about terms like DEI or culture as they are used in politics. Now I understand the origin of a lot of these ideas. All of the discourse in contemporary politics is a euphemism to this book. Too bad that it might have inadvertently destroyed the western civilization.
July 7, 2023
Interesting and unnerving discussion of how the mixing of races destroys intellectual prowess, ambition, creativity. Published in 1915. Helps to show the progress to Hitler's beliefs and actions.
August 5, 2026
Calling this book a “pseudo science” is a cope for defeated groups trying to handle the truth of this book. Anything that doesn’t fit their values or ideology is not a science to them because “science” is basically a massive attempt of conscious post bicameral intellectuals to explain and dumb down obvious truths to a hyper empirical bicameral unconscious population. We technically do not need “data” or “words” or “letters” or “numbers” to know something is true. A bird flies because it calculates aerodynamics without having to use “data” or “numbers”. Modern “Science” is not scientific whatsoever, it is just a bunch of numbers and words trying to explain something an intensely gifted 5 year old can already grasp. A bicameral mind infers that the physicist is smarter than the 5 year old merely due to the fact he can do a bunch of numbers to explain basic realities about the universe. “Psuedoscience” is just another word for “blasphemous”.
June 18, 2025
Considerably better researched and less opinionated than Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races as far as scientifically racist opinion pieces go but obviously The Passing of the Great Race is not an especially enlightening book, as it is filled with inaccuracies and gaps in scientific research.
Its support for eugenics is based more on Grant's personal opinion than on any sound scientific backing and the racial science and history is obviously incredibly outdated.
The Passing of the Great Race is a book to be read strictly for historical and educational purposes as it contains passages that exemplify commonly held opinions at the time in Europe and America but it's by no means a scientific text and it has been superseded by later research that debunks many of the claims it makes.
Its support for eugenics is based more on Grant's personal opinion than on any sound scientific backing and the racial science and history is obviously incredibly outdated.
The Passing of the Great Race is a book to be read strictly for historical and educational purposes as it contains passages that exemplify commonly held opinions at the time in Europe and America but it's by no means a scientific text and it has been superseded by later research that debunks many of the claims it makes.
December 27, 2024
Grant was no anthropologist and that is reflected in this work. His definitions of what constitutes the supposed Alpine, Nordic and Mediterranean races is nonsensical and likely borrowed from De Gobineau's works. Moreover his attempts at attributing the destruction of the supposed Nordic Romans and Greeks to mixing along racial lines is nonsensical even by standards of 20th century racial science. I wouldn't really recommend it however if one is interested in how the phenomenon of Nordicism emerged and developed in the United States and parts of Europe then this can be included.
February 17, 2024
Never read so much contradictory pseudo scientific garbage in my life. The guy rambles so much he forgets that he said the complete opposite, chapters or even paragraphs prior. It would be comedic if it didn't have such a devastating impact on our world. The problem today is that enough hasn't been done to remove this man's poison from our collective mindset. They banned the tripe that is Mein Kampf until it was cleansed from the German psyche but they allowed this codswallop to manifest.
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March 30, 2026Primera vez que leo algo totalmente sin sentido, con puro odio que irradia página tras página.
Yo leo ficción y todo el tiempo trataba de recordarme que este libro es el fruto delas creencias de una persona. Una persona psicopata en todos sus rasgos.
Llegue a el para profundizar conocimientos sobre eugenesia, y me voy con un trago amargo siendo testigo del génesis de lo que luego fue un genocidio.
Triste, muy triste.
Yo leo ficción y todo el tiempo trataba de recordarme que este libro es el fruto delas creencias de una persona. Una persona psicopata en todos sus rasgos.
Llegue a el para profundizar conocimientos sobre eugenesia, y me voy con un trago amargo siendo testigo del génesis de lo que luego fue un genocidio.
Triste, muy triste.
June 21, 2020
Speechless
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December 17, 2020The most racist book I’ve ever read.
August 3, 2023
Nordcucks cope and seethe, Mediterranean countries are Chad Europe.
November 19, 2023
I support not mixing of races, it weakens our superiority. Guess what “blacks” are the alpha & omega🫶🏾
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April 28, 2024czułam sie choro czytając to, ale must have dla sprawdzenia jak myślano (i uczono) o rasach podczas 1 wojny sw i jak pseudo nauka była dosłownie thriving
May 24, 2026
It’s interesting to see how anthropology has changed…
April 7, 2025
ts ass
October 21, 2024
Written in the early 1900s, the book tries to explain the superior culture of Nordic/Aryan cultures. Its has many racist conclusions based on the author 's opinions and is a weak attempt to write a Darwinian "Origin of Species " for European cultures.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews