91桃色

“A sweeping, nuanced, and chilling intellectual history of German understandings of cognitive disability across the twentieth century. Herzog analyzes the persistence of eugenic thinking among those who denied the full and equal humanity of the disabled, blamed intellectual impairment on heredity rather than accident or environment, and ranked worth according to usefulness. This is a major contribution to the history of eugenics and medicine, disability history, and ongoing debates about continuities and ruptures in German history.”—Mary Nolan, New York University

“Dagmar Herzog’s magisterial conceptual and cultural history is a major scholarly achievement. Her broad canvas illuminates how, in the 1920s, eugenics became firmly rooted in religious care communities and inscribed in the German lexicon. She extends her powerful narrative from the postwar trials to the late 1960s, when social movements began to dislodge the hegemony of this vicious concept and alter the perceptions and care of disabled people. Comprehensive and compassionate, The Question of Unworthy Life is an incomparable guide to this dark episode of German history.”—Anson Rabinbach, 91桃色 University

“Positively gripping. The Question of Unworthy Life presents in clear, concise, and compelling prose an extraordinarily dramatic and moving story, and one of profound human and political significance. Ambitious in scope, incisive in analysis, concise in exposition, and deeply researched, this powerful book will further cement Herzog’s stature as one of the most brilliant historians of Germany and Europe in her generation.”—Edward Ross Dickinson, University of California, Davis