Angela Saini's latest book explores the murky history of race science and the ways in which it is being resurrected in the 21st century. Combining science, history and politics, it explains how race maps out biologically and how those on the far-right are attempting to repackage racism. 

FINALIST FOR THE LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE HUGHES PRIZE

WINNER OF THE TRANSMISSION PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE FOYLES BOOK OF THE YEAR

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PHYSICS WORLD BOOK OF THE YEAR

NATURE TOP 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2019

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019

A SUNDAY TIMES BEST PAPERBACK OF 2020

A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR

A PROSPECT BOOK OF THE YEAR

A SMITHSONIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR

THE TELEGRAPH  TOP 50 BOOKS OF THE YEAR

A VANITY FAIR BOOK OF THE YEAR

A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR

A NPR SCIENCE FRIDAY BEST BOOK OF 2019

A LIBRARY JOURNAL BOOK OF THE YEAR

NEW ZEALAND LISTENER TOP 100 BOOKS OF THE YEAR

LITTLE ATOMS TOP 15 BOOKS OF THE YEAR

BBC SCIENCE FOCUS TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR

NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER'S 2020 SUMMER READING LIST

SUPERIOR has received starred reviews from Kirkus and the Library Journal. There has been glowing coverage in theTelegraph, the Guardian, Financial Times, New Statesman, Nature and Slate, among many others, and extracts in Wired, New Scientist and Popular Science. It was Australia's Readings bookshop Book of the Month for June, a number two bestseller in Foyles, and It has been a book club pick for groups across the world, including Wired UK and Chemistry World. It has also made its way onto university course reading lists around the world.

To order your copy go to the HarperCollins website in the UK or the Beacon Press website in the US and Canada. For UK book-related publicity contact Naomi Mantin at HarperCollins. For US and Canada book-related publicity contact Caitlin Meyer at Beacon Press.

Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Japanese, Turkish and Dutch rights have been sold. For enquiries about other foreign rights and translations please contact Louisa Pritchard at louisa@louisapritchard.co.uk or +44 (0)20 7193 7145 .

SELECT REVIEWS

"To skew research in ways that support one’s own world views is to abdicate the methods and tools of science, developed precisely to ferret out such bias wherever and whenever it appears. The social, cultural, and anthropological ranking of humans is especially susceptible to pernicious racism, as Saini explores in this timely and illuminating treatise." 

- Neil deGrasse Tyson

"Superior is the most readable of all the books that focus on race and human variation."

- Alan H Goodman

"It is shocking in places, but it’s also entertaining, in a macabre do-those-people-really-think-that? kind of a way (yes, they do). Saini examines the arguments of the self-proclaimed “race realists”, with their talk of “human biodiversity”, and skilfully demolishes the ground beneath their feet. She writes with a quiet and engaging dignity, drawing on her in-depth understanding of what science really has to say about race and genetics. An important, timely book." 

- Michael Brooks, New Statesman

"This attack on recent rationalisations for racism is one of the year's best polemics. Erudite, detailed, very readable and taking no damned nonsense."

- New Zealand Listener

"Magisterial, forensic." - The Telegraph

"It is Saini’s attention to power that will make her book essential reading for anyone concerned with understanding the history of science’s preoccupation with race. Blending skilful synthesis of essential works on the history of race science with compelling first-person interviews with today’s leading researchers..." 

- The Times Literary Supplement

"Angela roundly debunks racism's core lie - that inequality is do with genetics rather than political power."

- Reni Eddo-Lodge, author of Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race

"In this essential book, Angela Saini deftly shows how science and racism have long been intertwined, why that pernicious history continues to this day, and why 'race science' is so deeply flawed. Deeply researched, masterfully written, and sorely needed, Superior is an exceptional work by one of the world's best science writers."

- Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes

"A landmark work that will forever change how we think about race. An unputdownable book and a staggering accomplishment."

- Sonia Faleiro, author of Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars

"A brilliant and timely exposé of the absurdities of race science and how it has once-again facilitated the rise of a powerful far-right. As compelling as it is appalling, this is a rigorous account of the shocking ways researchers have used superficial differences between populations, like skin colour, to make hierarchical distinctions between humans. This important, masterfully written book is a welcome reminder that science is political and we should, as Saini has done for us, follow the money to discover who benefits from prejudicial narratives. I urge you to read it."

- Gaia Vince, author of Adventures in the Anthropocene and Royal Society Book Prize winner

"This is an essential book on an urgent topic by one of our most authoritative science writers."

- Sathnam Sanghera, author of The Boy with the Topknot

"Whether you think of racist science as bad science, evil science, alt-right science, or pseudoscience, why would any contemporary scientist imagine that gross inequality is a fact of nature, rather than of political history? Angela Saini’sSuperior connects the dots, laying bare the history, continuity, and connections of modern racist science, some more subtle than you might think. This is science journalism at its very best!"

-  Jonathan Marks, author of Tales of the Ex-Apes: How We Think About Human Evolution

"An intense, intelligent and compelling investigation into race science. Angela Saini is meticulous and forensic in her debunking of the myths around race and racism."

- Nikesh Shukla, author and editor of The Good Immigrant

"Angela Saini's investigative and narrative talents shine in  Superior , her compelling look at racial biases in science past and present. The result is both a crystal-clear understanding of why race science is so flawed, and why science itself is so vulnerable to such deeply troubling fault lines in its approach to the world around us - and to ourselves." 

- Deborah Blum, author of The Poison Squad

“A timely and powerful argument for the unity of the human species”

- Sujatha Gidla, author of Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India

"Angela Saini’s Superior: The Return of Race Science is nothing short of a remarkable, brilliant, and erudite exploration of what we believe about the racialized differences among our human bodies. Saini takes readers on a walking tour through science, art, history, geography, nostalgia and personal revelation in order to unpack many of the most urgent debates about human origins, and about the origin myths of racial hierarchies. This beautifully written book will change the way you see the world."

 -  Jonathan Metzl, author of Dying of Whiteness

"We expect science to provide rational explanations about the way the world is. But as Angela Saini shows in this lucidly-written and solidly-researched scrutiny of science, the politics and racial supremacy inherent of empire-building and colonisation have influenced the choices of scientists for centuries, and scientists have been complicit in creating hierarchies to justify the hegemony. Saini's gaze is unrelenting, as she examines anthropologists, biologists, policy-makers, and venerable institutions, who have extrapolated scientific principles and arguments to uphold views to justify racism embedded in our world. She forces us to look at our textbooks with fresh eyes as few reputations remain intact. Saini gets us to re-examine the way we look at our world: An important work at a time when the world is divided and dubious racist ideas are gaining wider currency quickly on the Internet, with consequences in the real world."

- Salil Tripathi, author of The Colonel Who Would Not Repent and Detours: Songs of the Open Road

"Some writers have tackled the sordid history of race science previously, but none have gone so deep under the skin of the subject as Angela Saini in Superior . In her deceptively relaxed writing style, Saini patiently leads readers through the intellectual minefields of 'scientific' racism. She plainly exposes the conscious and unconscious biases that have led even some of our most illustrious scientists astray." 

- Michael Balter, science journalist and author of The Goddess and the Bull

"Angela’s book is a lucid and angry exposition of the culture wars between the social and natural sciences which take human biodiversity at their core 'race science’ and passion for hierarchy which places them yet again (i.e. whites and particularly white males) as superior."

- Hilary Rose