This textbook differs so from nearly all others in it's deapth of treatment of the subject of the complex movements of peoples in Europe, Eastern Asia and Northern Africa. Each chapter could have been produced as an entire text. Of course descriptive terminology of physical anthropology must be mastered and detailed maps are needed for a thorough examination, but this text attempts to pull together all of the finds and studies available throughout the world of 1939. Since the page count of the edition mentioned here in Amazon is identical to the orignal 1939 edition, I must assume the later book is a reprint. I am anxious to learn if Carleton Stevens Coon updated his work with post-war findings. I find the study of these complex movements similar to a study of, say, astronomy. To most people, such a study would prove equally as original. In recent years our PBS Nova show has featured some abstract regional discoveries in Anthropology complete with an hour of speculation. But readers of the Coon text are already familiar with the directions of their conclusions. Possibly few have read Coon's masterful research compilation. Coon was begining his illustrious career when he wrote, "Races of Europe." I am anxious to read his work from later life.

Regardless of enormous advances that biology has made in the last decades,certainly racial typology has its own value in tracing,for example,human migrations whithout whose some historical aspects cannot be fully understood.Unlike the German literature in the 1930's,which is littered with ethnocentric superstition,in Coon's textbook we are finding blow to fallacies that something like "White Race" exist.What do Osteuropids have in common with Atlantomediteranians that sets them in special status vis-a-vi Mongoloids or Aethiopids for example?Our current misperception about races derives because we think only about "racial conglomerates",we see differencies that are obvious "at glance" without giving second thought.Although a little bit of obsoletness can be detected here and there,nevertheless this is good starting point for racial studies,together with two classics-"Mankind Evolving" by Th.Dobzhansky and "Race" by John R. Baker.

In the early 1970s I sold books about the white race in Silver Spring, Maryland with my partner, a very talented fellow who helped me to get the enterprise going even though it had to start on the kitchen table of our apartment. Eventually he took full responsibility and operated for many years on his own. Our company was called White Legion books, and although we handled just about every book anyone ever recommended about the white race, there was no book more sober, professional, and fascinating than Carlton Coon's "The Races of Europe." A lot of readers who are familiar with older classics on this subject know that such books tend to be politically biased in favor of Germans, Icelanders, and other nationalities believed by the far right to be superior representatives of the race. Carlton Coon, however, does not promote such obsolete beliefs. And it's unfortunate that more people interested in this subject, especially right wing political activists, couldn't learn from this book why they should give up the ideas of superiority which devaluate many whites. The misguided still laud the abilities of Nordics over other members of the white race; such as Alpines and Mediterraneans. That this is foolish is evidenced by the fact that it is vitually impossible to tell with total certainty, without some detailed DNA examination, exactly what sub-racial category someone is in. There are just too many jokers in the deck, and even a person fitting the "Nordic profile" can spiritually be in some other category anyway. When someone comes along on the political scene who ignores these facts, such as George Lincoln Rockwell of the American Nazi Party, it can have fatal consequences for the advocate. Rockwell was assassinated by John Patler, who was once the most active and loyal stormtrooper of his group; in fact, this party member was highlighted in the original edition of Rockwell's autobiography "This Time the World" with a large photograph (It's since been censored out). Patler, a Greek American with a dark complexion, one day realized that he was in a racial category considered by the National Socialist ideology to be a second class position - a Mediterranean. If you ever have the opportunity to see Carlton Coon's book, which could be available from a really decent college or university library collection on anthopology, be sure to look at the hundreds of photographs that are included for the purpose of identifying the many types of white people that exist. If you look carefully, and you have a natural eye for it, you may even see someone who looks just like yourself, or like your family members. These "types" were created because of the long periods of time in Europe when people did not move around very much. And while it's true that the Europeans of America are often much more blended than the types seen in Carlton Coon's book, you will still be able to see what "types" comprise the faces you've long been familiar with. I found it quite easy to locate faces so familiar that I see them every day, and they were easy to verify because there's supporting information below each photograph to confirm each determination by the few geographic locations associated with them in Europe. If there is anyone who has the opportunity to reprint this book, I would urge them to do it as soon as possible; for it's obvious that a lot of people never want to see this book available again.

When the book was first published in 1962 it was hailed as a classic - scholarly, full of tables, skull measurements, "facts" about geology, climate, biology etc. Alas, the knowledge about evolution at the time was pseudoscientific, and Coon's theories of polygenesis and the advanced stage on the evolutionary time scale of the "Caucasian" and Chinese "races" and the "primitiveness" of the Africans and Australoids have been disproved. Advances in genetics, including DNA sequencing, geology, climatology and other "hard" sciences have shown that modern man, i.e. homo sapiens sapiens, originated in Africa and migrated to the other parts of the world, where they evolved into the different "races," which actually have more variation within than in comparison with other races. And the "Neandertal Man" was actually not a man but a different species. But don't get me wrong. If you're interested in how scholars thought in the past and in the history of racism, this book is very instructive. After at least eight printings (as of 1971), it's finally out-of-print! If Amazon can get it for you it should be an interesting collector's item. Ruben P. Mendez, Riverdale, New York City, USA

Today we are bombarded,from schools to academia,from TV to politics,and last but not the least,by activities of different "Friends of Mankind" that are unanimous in their proclamation of Racial Diversity as myth,esspecialy with regard to Racial Diferences of moral,intelectual and behavioral nature.There are many titles devoted to racistic propaganda, but Coon's book was criticised because of its theory of differential branching of mankind and primitivness of particular races.All arguments against are false,because:main process in Biological World is branching,and once it starts to operate within species,it caries distinct population into creation of two or more non-interbreeding species.In the phase of racial differencies amoung modern Humans,although they are mutualy fertile,there is great deal of anatomical,biochemical,biophysical differencies as result of adaptation between interbreeding groups to the task set for them in process of survival and adaptation to always dynamic microecological milleau,thus producing set of biologic synergisms which are expressable as different levels in sociobiological performance amoung diverse Racial groups.This is something deducable almost on the speculative level,but it has been proven by series of empirical commparative observations.Primittivness of Australoids is today widely accepted among cientific community,and theory that some living populations have interbreeded with some of earlier Hominids seems more plausable because main trends in Human evolution during upper paleolithic are relatively well known,and some living Races show primitive evolutionary features,what is implicative of survival of hybrids because of combination of those features that are relevant for darwinistic survival.The fact that this book was very widely quoted within paleoanthropological circles in former communist countries-rigidly antirasistic ones-is best proof that it contains no falsification or speculations intented to spread false impression about certain living populations.This is classic among anthropologic literature,that must be investigated if ones ultimate goal is scientific comprehension of Racial reality.

Good reading. Probably presents valid anthropological ideas. We should never close our eyes to his type of scientific analysis in the name of "political correctness", while ignoring the possibility that he just might be right! For a country that prides itself on open-mindedness and free speech, we can be the most censored people on earth!