The Measure of Merit:
Talents, Intelligence, and Inequality in the French and American Republics, 1750-1940
John Carson

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

List of Tables ix
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1

PART I: MENTAL ABILITIES AND REPUBLICAN CULTURES 9

Chapter One: "The most precious gift of nature": Natural Aristocracy, Republican Polities, and the Meanings of Talent 11
Chapter Two: Mental Capacities and Orthodox Minds: Mental Science, Education, and the Politics of Individual Difference 38
Chapter Three: All Men Are Created Equal? Anthropology, Intelligence, and the Science of Race 75

PART II: INDIVIDUALIZING INTELLIGENCE THROUGH THE SCIENCE OF DIFFERENCE 111

Chapter Four: Between the Art of the Clinic and the Precision of the Laboratory: Individual Intelligence and the Science of Difference in Third Republic France 113
Chapter Five: American Psychology and the Seductions of IQ 159

PART III: MERIT, MATTER, AND MIND 195

Chapter Six: Out of the Lab and Into the World: Intelligence Goes to War 197
Chapter Seven: Intelligence and the Politics of Merit between the Wars 229

Epilogue 271
Notes 281
Index 387

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File created: 4/23/2008

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