The Races of Europe [Hardcover]

Carleton Stevens Coon (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The volume is a scholarly addition to our knowledge of the peoples of Europe.”–American Journal of Sociology

Product Details

• Hardcover: 739 pages
• Publisher: Greenwood Press Reprint; New edition edition (November 14, 1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0837163285
• ISBN-13: 978-0837163284
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,521,586 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book Ever Published About The White Race, December 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Races of Europe (Hardcover)

In the early 1970s I sold books about the white race in Silver Spring, Maryland with my partner, a very talented fellow who helped me to get the enterprise going even though it had to start on the kitchen table of our apartment. Eventually he took full responsibility and operated for many years on his own. Our company was called White Legion books, and although we handled just about every book anyone ever recommended about the white race, there was no book more sober, professional, and fascinating than Carlton Coon's "The Races of Europe." A lot of readers who are familiar with older classics on this subject know that such books tend to be politically biased in favor of Germans, Icelanders, and other nationalities believed by the far right to be superior representatives of the race. Carlton Coon, however, does not promote such obsolete beliefs. And it's unfortunate that more people interested in this subject, especially right wing political activists, couldn't learn from this book why they should give up the ideas of superiority which devaluate many whites. The misguided still laud the abilities of Nordics over other members of the white race; such as Alpines and Mediterraneans. That this is foolish is evidenced by the fact that it is vitually impossible to tell with total certainty, without some detailed DNA examination, exactly what sub-racial category someone is in. There are just too many jokers in the deck, and even a person fitting the "Nordic profile" can spiritually be in some other category anyway. When someone comes along on the political scene who ignores these facts, such as George Lincoln Rockwell of the American Nazi Party, it can have fatal consequences for the advocate. Rockwell was assassinated by John Patler, who was once the most active and loyal stormtrooper of his group; in fact, this party member was highlighted in the original edition of Rockwell's autobiography "This Time the World" with a large photograph (It's since been censored out). Patler, a Greek American with a dark complexion, one day realized that he was in a racial category considered by the National Socialist ideology to be a second class position - a Mediterranean. If you ever have the opportunity to see Carlton Coon's book, which could be available from a really decent college or university library collection on anthopology, be sure to look at the hundreds of photographs that are included for the purpose of identifying the many types of white people that exist. If you look carefully, and you have a natural eye for it, you may even see someone who looks just like yourself, or like your family members. These "types" were created because of the long periods of time in Europe when people did not move around very much. And while it's true that the Europeans of America are often much more blended than the types seen in Carlton Coon's book, you will still be able to see what "types" comprise the faces you've long been familiar with. I found it quite easy to locate faces so familiar that I see them every day, and they were easy to verify because there's supporting information below each photograph to confirm each determination by the few geographic locations associated with them in Europe. If there is anyone who has the opportunity to reprint this book, I would urge them to do it as soon as possible; for it's obvious that a lot of people never want to see this book available again.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Let Us Use Scientific Accuracy, February 4, 2006

By 

Keith Brabender "Ex Libris" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Races of Europe (Hardcover)

Mr. Highduke below is misleading in his review. Carleton Coon

never approached his topics in a less than scientific way.

Political correctness has not yet entered academia to hide the truth. Mr. Coon merely refined his definitions and did not renounce anything or change his mind in the sense that one is wrong about something. The paragraph in "The Origin of Races"

reads: "Races like the Nordic, Alpine, Mediterranean, East Baltic,and Dinaric...are neither subspecies nor, in a strict

sense, local races, although some local races may be defined in these terms. These words have also been used in the sense of types, which can be picked out of local populations. One may find a Spaniard who is typically Nordic in the midst of a population Of Mediterraneans, including his own brothers. In a sense the situation is genetically comparable to finding a man of blood group B whose father's group was A. Types selected in this fashion are interesting to observe, and we notice them every day. Whether or not they reflect the origins of a population in one way or another, we must remember from the taxonomic point of view such types are not races but simply the

visible expressions of the genetic variability of the intermarrying groups to which they belong."

This is exactly what "The Races of Europe" demonstrated.

If the book were a textbook on dog types, no one would care. But people are somehow invulnerable to the laws of heredity. I refuse to be dumbed down for someone else's political agenda.

Carleton Coon was a professor at Harvard and at the U. of Pennsylvania. He is deceased and cannot defend his works of science, but I am alive and I can and I do.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars OK text, poor pictures, March 3, 2008

By 

Stefan Namath "stefan" (Cleveland, Oh) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Races of Europe (Hardcover)

I first found and read this book from our local library... it is a masterpiece to anyone interested in anthropology. Although the cost was about $78, I decided that I had to own it and bought a new copy. The new edition I received was certainly new and clean, but the print was not quite of the quality that the library edition had. The B&W photographs/plates of the library edition were high quality, glossy prints; whereas, this new edition has disparagingly mediocre reproductions of them.