Labeling people

by Martin S. Staum

During the turbulent era of revolution and industrialization in nineteenth-century France, scholars searched for methods to limit social upheaval by discerning individual dispositions to intelligence and good character. They also sought to prove the superiority of Europeans to other “races.” In *Labeling People* Martin Staum explores the use of geography, phrenology, and ethnology to classify people. Early nineteenth-century concepts of racial inequality prefigured the imperialist “associationist” discourse of the Third Republic. Such ideas could justify European tutelage of “civilizable” peoples and provide an open invitation to dominate and exploit the “uncivilizable.”