Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century

Though filled with fairly technical medical terminology, the book is readable and packed with insights into ideas that continue to plague the study of human flourishing. It's as if America got rid of its false narrative about race, then substituted another one hiding under a thin coat of science. Highly recommended.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, especially the discussions of the research into the genomic basis for determining race. This is a good source to help you understand the state of this research. It describes how the negative effects on the health of people of color from years of social and political repression have been conflated with the idea that genes are responsible. This leads to the belief that human beings can be divided into distinct races that are genetically distinct from one another. The book traces the historical development of racial identities and describes how race is a fluid idea. For example, the number of races that the US recognizes now for demographic purposes are very different from the racial categories used at different times in history demonstrating that race is a political and social construct, not a biological one.

So far, it's really interesting. However, the print is really small. I have some vision issues so reading it is a bit of a struggle. As for the contents of the book itself, I'll say more when I've read more.

This book is excellent. Its delivery is from a factual standpoint which makes the book even better than can be imagined. This book is required reading for everyone so that you acquain yourself with the historical, factual things about our great USA. This book is even more required reading for the young, because it is with the young that, perhaps, things will change. Dorothy Roberts leaves no stone unturned in her thesis. This book is concise and straight to the point. It visits the past that factually was, and the present that factually is. This book should not be ignored. It is an excellent read. It is and can be an enlightened read. Again, it is a read that is necessary in order to change the course of a history that has too long been perpetuated. Definitely recommend this book for everyone!!!

A very complex argument clearly exposed. It is not an easy read though — it requires attention, diligence, and an open mind. Dense, well researched, intense, interesting. It is a lesson on academic writing too — Robert's always presents all of the sides of the argument clearly explaining why she thinks the way she does. After having read it I realized how the idea of race is ingrained in social and political life much more than I thought.

So much is being written now about race, but this book is the best meticulously researched and clearly written answer to the questions about what really is race that I've seen. Dorothy Roberts writes compellingly and takes a historical and scientific tour of what the understanding of race has been and is now. Don't miss it!

Rock solid information--intelligent and accessible, well laid out chapters each one building on the next till the end where your heart is brought to its knees. "Radical restructuring of our society, we must choose the path of common humanity and social change"

This book purports to show how race is a political (ideological) concept with no evidence in biology/ genomics. I agree with this. However, Roberts does not explain the biology. She spends many pages on eugenics and then says that eugenics was dismissed as bad science with no explanation why it was bad science. She quotes Richard Lewontin on his statement that race cannot he found in biology. But does she explain it? No, she goes on to say that racist scientists tried to over-turn Lewontin’s statement by claiming it had a fallacy.It is all well and good to repeatedly point out that racial bias pre-determines how one looks at DNA/biology. It is another thing to rigorously show how it is not held up by the science.Meanwhile, the likes of David Reich still get to peddle their theories of racial inferiority as proved by the genome. There is no science in this book to disprove Reich.This book can be useful to bring one to the names and anchor stones of the debate on race, but it does not understand the science that makes it clear that race is a cultural construct and not a product of biology.

Very interesting and informative book regarding the issue of race in America.

Dorothy Roberts makes the very strong case here . I wasn't sure all the facts on the medical side were facts speaking as a retired medic myself so if doubt I would check elsewhere but having said that this was a useful read .