Intelligence 32 (2004) 653–654

Book review

Race: The Reality of Human Differences

V. Sarich and F. Miele. (2004). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-4086-1, $27.50, pp. xiii+287

According to the authors, a major myth about race is abroad in the land:

For the past fifty years. . .most of the media and the social sciences have rejected the view that race is

a biological reality. They have insisted on characterizing ‘‘race’’ as a ‘‘social construction,’’ that is, a

classification system, developed and maintained to justify European imperialism and white supremacy

(p. 4).

Sarich and Miele beg to differ. They argue based on ancient art and inscriptions that humans were

classifying people into broad ‘‘racial’’ categories thousands of years before European imperialism and

White supremacy were even thought of. Moreover, the categories (insofar as applicable) pretty much

agree with the major races of mankind described by the 19th century anthropologists and in popular

usage today.

The authors describe the history of conflicts about race and races, from the philosophers and

theologians of the Middle Ages (the Biblical Garden of Eden story was key) to the anthropologists of the

19th and 20th centuries. Feelings still run high, although fewer of the controversialists get burned at the

stake nowadays.

Sarich and Miele’s book pays a good deal of attention to modern evolutionary views of race and its

origins: that although real biological differences develop among separated populations subjected to

different environments, a huge amount of genetic variation remains within them, and sharp boundaries

do not exist—races tend to blend and shade into one another at their margins. Several chapters provide

an account of recent scientific work by Sarich and others on a chronology of human evolution that raises

fascinating questions: How could the very substantial deviations now observable among human

populations have developed in just the last 50,000 years since modern humans moved out of Africa

and across the globe? What explains the sudden, dramatic triumph of modern humans over all rivals?

Why do modern humans seem to have no genes at all from the various peoples they supplanted, such as

the Neanderthals?

Although the book contains a chapter on behavior, readers of this journal will probably not find much

on the topic of intelligence that is new to them. The works of Jensen, Rushton, and Herrnstein and

Murray are briefly discussed, and Lynn and Vanhanen’s recent book IQ and the Wealth of Nations is

mentioned.

A concluding chapter, ‘‘Learning to Live With Race,’’ expresses the authors’ own view—that we

ought primarily to treat individuals according to their individual characteristics (since that is where most

doi:10.1016/j.intell.2004.05.004

Book review654

of the variation lies), but that the recognition and study of human racial differences is a legitimate and

proper pursuit, not totally devoid of practical and social significance, and that having one’s head in the

sand is not an attractive moral posture.

On the whole, it is a readable and graceful book, although the chapters vary somewhat in the level at

which they are pitched. I found it both informative and enjoyable to read.

John C. Loehlin

Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A8000,

Austin, TX 78712-0817, USA

E-mail address: loehlin@psy.utexas.edu