The Racial Myth [Signed First Edition]

New York: Whittlesey House - McGraw Book Company, 1934. Signed by Paul Radin at title page: "Paul Radin." Stated First Edition at copyright page. 1934 date at title and copyright page. Apparently, for whatever reason, the first and only printing of this material. Dark maroon buckram (cloth) boards, cream cover and spine titles, light shelf, corner wear, rub. Pages near fine, clean. Small signature penned at front endpaper: "Elveiler - 1934." Bind fine, square; hinges intact. Sharp signed rarity of this pivotol volume. From dedication page: "To the memory of my father. Who was always in the vanguard of liberal movements and who understood, as he exemplified in his life, the dictum of the great Greek: 'Tis not in hate, but love, that men unite themselves.'" Paul Radin was an American cultural anthropologist and folklorist born in 1883 in the cosmopolitan Polish city of Lódz, then a part of the Russian Empire. His family emigrated from Europe to the USA and he later studied at Columbia under Franz Boas. Interestingly, he was the son of the rabbi Adolph Moses Radin and brother of noted legal scholar Max Radin. From prefatory remark: "Perhaps no event of recent times has provoked more astonishment and incredulity than the assertion put forward that specific peoples belong to a superior race and that everything great and signficiant in the history of the wrold has been accomplsihed by them. Since we are ostensibly dealing here with mature people it is necessary to take cognizance of their cleaims. Fortunately we need not enter into any polemics with them. The facts speak for themselves. It is in an attempt to state what these facts are and how it has come about that race and nationality lend themselsves so easily to miinterpretation and abuse that the following book has been written. In the crisis of civilization through which we are now passing, no thinking and feeling individual can long remain untouched and unaffected. For that reason a brief review of the history of civilization and the contributions of the various races of the human race, mixed and unmixed, may possibly be of service and value. Such a survey indicates quite clearly that all specific pretensions to superiority are both illusory and unjustified." Contents: "Foreword; Chapter I. The Myth of Racial Superiority Through the Ages; II. The Illusion of the Confused Late Comers: The Nordic Myth; III. The Torch of Civilization: From the Stone Age to Today; IV. The European Achievement Since the Sixteenth Century: The New Instrument and The New Nationalism; V. The Pan-European Achievement in the Nineteenth Century: The New Art of Thought; VI. The Confederation of the World." Printed in the United States of America by The Maple Press Company, York, Pa. 141 pages. Insured post.. Signed by Author. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" Tall.