French Literature Reviews - 2026

C.-O. Doron, L'homme altéré. Races et dégénérescence (XVIIe-XIXe s.)
History, Politics and Society

L'homme altéré - Races et dégénérescence (XVIIe-XIXe siècles)
Claude-Olivier Doron

Publication date: 01/04/2016 Publisher: Champ Vallon Series: La chose publique ISBN: 979-10-267-0096-8 EAN: 9791026700968 Format: Paperback No. of pages: 586 p.

Race, origin, lineage... These are all loaded concepts making a resurgence today in both political discourse and scientific research, occasionally putting severe strain on our public sphere.

Through a journey spanning a wide variety of fields between the 17th and the mid-19th century—from noble genealogies and theological texts to natural history, medicine, and animal breeding practices—this book re-examines the complex history of these concepts, the ways they were integrated into heterogeneous bodies of knowledge, and how they were mobilized within diverse power structures.
However, this is not intended as a general history of the idea of race, let alone a global history of racism. Its deliberate approach is to systematically interrogate the relationship between the question of race and the less well-known but decisive issue of degeneration, understood as the alteration or deviation from original qualities. This choice highlights the significance, within the history of racism, of a "racism of alteration." Rather than framing human differences through the lens of radical otherness—by contesting the unity of the human species and absolutizing differences—this form of racism reduces differences to altered, degraded, or delayed versions of oneself and of human identity, which supposedly ought to be regenerated, corrected, or perfected.

While this book occasionally challenges certain dichotomies prevalent in the historiography of racism, it also aims to demonstrate how a Manichean historical narrative conceals the deep roots of the notion of race, even within the most contemporary fields of knowledge. It reveals how much more polymorphic and, unfortunately, pervasive racism is when understood as a set of race-based techniques of domination. The goal here is not to point out where racism is absent, but rather to show where it may also be found: in the assertion of species unity, in a certain universalist humanism, or in political liberalism. It resides there neither as a mere remnant nor as a betrayal or contradiction; it follows its own internal logics.

The intellectual history of human differences has long engaged scholars examining the intersections of power, science, and social classification across the early modern and modern periods. Discussions surrounding genealogy, natural history, and medicine frequently intersected with political thought as writers sought to categorize human lineages and physical variations. Within the broader European traditions, investigations into degeneration often reflected anxieties concerning civilization, heredity, and state governance, shedding light on the evolving vocabularies used to describe human populations before the formal institutionalization of modern racial sciences.

Claude-Olivier Doron explores the genealogy of race and degeneration from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century, examining heterogeneous bodies of knowledge, power structures, and a racism of alteration. Readers interested in the history of human sciences, political discourse, and biopolitics may find this volume relevant to contemporary discussions surrounding identity and dominance.

Read the press review on the publisher's website...

Also on laviedesidees.fr: "The Birth of Race", by V. Vilmain.