I’m writing a piece, not yet finished, on early 20th century eugenics. My interest isn’t in merely documenting bygone curiosities, but rather in suggesting the lessons that that episode bears for our own time.

George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” William Faulkner’s thematically similar quote was, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” For the documentarian or analyst, however, the problem is that the language, dress, and aesthetic of the past can render it dead and forgettable when it ought to be living and menacing. The challenge is to make the past familiar—and visceral—to contemporary audiences without compromising its veracity.

[The eugenics past needs to be connected to the eugenics present — in abortion, euthanasia, and a new obsession with ethnic determinism. Let’s hope that Bob can successfully achieve that kind of insight through his new book. — Ed]