The amount of solid information this book provides both to the specialist and to the interested layman is awesome — and it will force the reader to jettison many a cherished yet erroneous belief.
Vladimir Avdeyev: Rasologia. Biblioteka rasovoy mysli, Moscow, 2007. 665 pages.
a review by Jürgen Graf
Where in the world is it nowadays conceivable that a book about the inherent differences between the human races, which pays tribute to the racial theorists of the Third Reich and explicitly claims that all races are not equal, is not only openly sold in the bookstores but even becomes a bestseller? And where in the world is it possible that such a book is favorably reviewed by renowned scholars and provided with two introductions, one written by a member of parliament and the other one by a prominent representative of a liberal organization?
In Germany, Austria or France? Unthinkable! In these countries such a book would almost certainly be banned; its author would be put on trial for “racial discrimination” or “instigation of the populace”; any member of parliament who would have the audacity of endorsing its contents by writing an introduction would immediately be castigated as a “racist bigot” by the media and would have to relinquish his seat in parliament within days.
In the Anglo-Saxon world? Not impossible, but highly unlikely. It is quite true that the English-speaking countries enjoy much greater freedom of thought and speech than the German-speaking ones or France. In the USA, the First Amendment to the Constitution would certainly protect the author of such a book from legal persecution; in Britain or Canada, there are laws against “racism”, but the author of a scholarly work about race would hardly be prosecuted on the basis of these laws. On the other hand, the media would either ignore or angrily denounce his book without discussing his arguments, and he would risk social ostracism. This is exactly what happened in the United States to Arthur Jensen and Hans Eysenck, two serious scientists who had dared to challenge the dogma of racial equality. They were pilloried as “racists” and “haters” and harassed by left-wing fanatics for whom rational arguments did not count. The late biologist Glade Whitney became the victim of a tremendous smear campaign after writing an introduction to David Duke’s My Awakening. Only a handful of scholars or politicians will muster the courage to incur the wrath of the watchdogs of “political correctness”.
In Russia? Yes, in Russia all this is perfectly possibly. The proof is Vladimir Avdeyev’s books Rasologia, the second edition of which came out in late 2007 in Moscow. Vladimir Borisovich Avdeyev was born in 1962, After acquiring a university degree in Economics, he served in the Soviet Air Force where he was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant. Since 1993, he has been a member of the Russian Writers’ Association; in 1991, he founded the journal Atenei together with his comrades-in-arms Anatoli Ivanov and Pavel Tulayev. Since 1999, V. Avdeyev has edited a series of books under the title “Biblioteka Rasovoy Mysli” (The Library of Racial Thought), and in 2005, the first edition of his Rasologia appeared. This book was highly successful, and already two years later its author was able to publish an improved and enlarged second edition. The two introductions were written by Andrey Savelev, a delegate of the Russian Duma {parliament) and close personal friend of Avdeyev, and by Valeri Solovei, a historian and member of the ultra-liberal Gorbachev Foundation, who aptly summarizes the book as
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