Love: A Treatise on the Science of Sex-Attraction, by Bernard S. Talmey (HC, $3, which is 1/3 the internet price.)
After skimming most of this book, I was surprised to find less objectionable material here than I anticipated (but I had expected a lot!). Then I got to the scary Eugenics section. Talmey believed that nature was far more important than nurture. Thus, though marriage was a right for all, only non-defectives should be allowed produce children. Talmey felt mass segregation of defectives would be impractical, but that sterilization would be effective. Those with impaired judgment would be sterilized by force. "Intelligent people" would be "taught to renounce propagation by sterilization, including those "with a disposition to neuropathic ailments or to alcoholic excesses, or who show an inability to learn in school, or those in whose families are found cases of dementia praecox, manic-depressive insanity, or those suffering from incurable inheritable diseases, such as tuberculosis, cancer, syphilis, hemophilia, color blindness, albinism..." Castration should only be used in cases of violent criminals (and chronic burglars!). Wow, as I said earlier, scary stuff!
So some of this stuff is boring, some funny, and some gaggingly offensive, but it is all interesting, as long as a potential for the scary stuff exists only in the past. When this book was written, though, eugenics could have become a reality.
Look for this book on the new non-fiction table, available 1/4. (Later placement: the sexuality section)
