Race : a study in modern superstition / Jacques Barzun.

  • Jacques Barzun
Date:
1938
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Race : a study in modern superstition / Jacques Barzun. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    an aggressively jingoistic belief in the minds led by Joseph Chamberlain or Cecil Rhodes. The latter saw, and made others see, in the words of Francis Thomp son: 1 . . . the Teuton and the Saxon grip Hands round the warded world, and bid it rock . . . He saw the three-branched Teuton hold the sides Of the round world, and part it as a dish. . . . And on this basis the Empire-builder's followers were insisting that his greatness lay in being the first British statesman whose imperialism was not of Empire but of Race. (W. T. Stead, Rhodes''s Last Will and Testament, p. 52.) Politics and race-theories occur too often in con junction for us not to conclude that under most condi tions the alliance is a natural, even a necessary one. The still dominant Nordic myth finds adherents in the most unexpected quarters, science and historical-mindedness appearing to be of no avail against its fascination. Originating in a pamphlet by the disaffected Roman Tacitus, the theory was nurtured in France through the 150 years of the monarchy by the disaffected nobles. Its first form there was the enmity of Franks and Gallo- Romans. After the Revolution, enriched with the dis coveries of Celticism, and reinforced by the political passions of liberals and nationalists, it achieved European scale. But it was not destined to stop with history-writ- 1 Ode on Cecil Rhodes.