A history of both evolutionary theory and ideas about race and racism. In an intellectually engaging narrative that mixes science and history, theories and personalities, Shipman explains the original controversy over evolution in Darwin's time; the corruption of evolutionary theory into eugenics; the conflict between laboratory research in genetics and field work in physical anthropology and biology, which gave rise to the `new synthesis' of modern evolutionary biology, which in turn cast a new light on the age-old debate of nature versus nurture; and the continuing controversies over the heritability of intelligence, criminal behaviour, and other traits.