Defending the master race

by Jonathan Peter Spiro

"Scholars have labeled Madison Grant everything from "the nation's most influential racist" to "the greatest conservationist that ever lived." His life illuminates early twentieth-century America as it was heading toward the American Century, and his legacy is still very much with us today, from the speeches of immigrant-bashing politicians to the international efforts to arrest climate change. This insightful biography shows how Grant worked side-by-side with figures such as Theodore Roosevelt. Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to found the Bronx Zoo, preserve the California redwoods, and save the American bison from extinction. In commemoration of his conservation efforts, the world's tallest tree, located in northern California, was dedicated to Grant in 1931." "But Madison Grant was also the leader of the eugenics movement in the United States. He popularized the infamous notions that the blond-haired blue-eyed Nordics were the "master race" and that the state should e