Throughout history people have sought to improve society by reducing suffering eliminating
disease or enhancing desirable qualities in their children. But this wish goes hand in hand
with the desire to impose control over who can marry who can procreate and who is permitted to
live. In the Victorian era in the shadow of Darwin's ideas about evolution a new full-blooded
attempt to impose control over our unruly biology began to grow in the clubs salons and
offices of the powerful. It was enshrined in a political movement that bastardised science and
for sixty years enjoyed bipartisan and huge popular support. Eugenics was vigorously embraced
in dozens of countries. It was also a cornerstone of Nazi ideology and forged a path that led
directly to the gates of Auschwitz. But the underlying ideas are not merely historical. The
legacy of eugenics persists in our language and literature from the words 'moron' and
'imbecile' to the themes of some of our greatest works of culture. Today with new gene editing
techniques very real conversations are happening - including in the heart of British
government - about tinkering with the DNA of our unborn children to make them smarter fitter
stronger. CONTROL tells the story of attempts by the powerful throughout history to dictate
reproduction and regulate the interface of breeding and society. It is an urgently needed
examination that unpicks one of the defining and most destructive ideas of the twentieth
century. To know this history is to inoculate ourselves against its being repeated.
