This open access book examines the web of scientific, cultural, and political interests that influenced the writing of The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life and the contemporary currents that keep this controversial book in discussion. Published in 1994, The Bell Curve remains one of the most controversial social science books ever published due to its claim for genetic differences in intelligence among races which, while it repulsed many, resonated in some audiences and remains a touchstone in the social sciences today. Professor Tucker opens with an analysis of the role of race in The Bell Curve that provides a strong counter to the author’s claims that race played a minor role in the book or that it was agnostic to the question of the role of biology in causing race differences in education, intelligence, and socioeconomic success. He moves on to consider its emphasis on meritocracy, situating it within the history of Herrnstein’s own intellectual trajectory, as well as the connections to eugenics and psychology in the early 20th century. In the remaining chapters Professor Tucker examines The Bell Curve as part of an ongoing political project including a discussion of the way in which the attitudes fostered by the book can be seen to have played a role in the 2016 US election. It argues that by focusing attention exclusively on individual differences in cognitive ability as the source of inequality, it diverts attention from the more important structural variables that account for differences in people’s economic outcomes. This compelling analysis will appeal in particular to scholars and those with an interest in the history of scientific racism, the history of psychology and the sociology of knowledge and science.This is an open access book.

Princeton Radicals is part history and part biography. It begins with a description of the issues that produced such passionate political activism in the 1960s and the specific campaigns that Students for a Democratic Society-the most important radical organization on campuses at the time-waged at Princeton University. The book then goes on to describe the lives of nine of the leaders of the Princeton campaigns, examining the effect of their participation in the radical movement on their choice of careers and subsequent political opinions. A number of these former activists are still involved in efforts to create a more egalitarian society, the same goal that motivated them almost half a century ago. But even for those whose politics have changed dramatically, their career decisions have been informed by the same values that prompted their student activism.