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Man's World
In a eugenics-driven future society, will one young woman’s defiance make a difference?
In the not-too-distant future, England’s population quality and quantity are under scientific Only those deemed the fittest are permitted to procreate. Women are groomed to be “vocational mothers”—or else sterilized and put to other uses. Written by an author married to one of the world’s most prominent eugenics advocates, this ambivalent adventure anticipates both Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale . When a young woman rebels against her conditioning, can she break free?
In the not-too-distant future, England’s population quality and quantity are under scientific Only those deemed the fittest are permitted to procreate. Women are groomed to be “vocational mothers”—or else sterilized and put to other uses. Written by an author married to one of the world’s most prominent eugenics advocates, this ambivalent adventure anticipates both Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale . When a young woman rebels against her conditioning, can she break free?
296 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1926
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About the author
Charlotte Haldane
18 books13 followersCharlotte Haldane (née Franken, first married name Burghes) was an English feminist author. Her second husband was the biologist J.B.S. Haldane.
Charlotte Franken was born in Sydenham, London. Her parents were Jewish immigrants, her father, Joseph, a German fur trader. In 1906 the family moved to Antwerp. She enrolled on a typing course in London. During the First World War her parents were interned but emigrated in 1915 to the United States.
She married Jack Burghes in 1918 and they had a son Ronnie. In 1924 however she interviewed the biologist J.B.S. Haldane for the Daily Express and they soon became friends. She then had a scandalous divorce from her husband, before marrying Haldane in 1926.
After a wartime trip to the Soviet Union, she became disillusioned with socialism, which J.B.S. still believed in, writing about it in Russian Newsreel. The Haldanes separated in 1942, divorcing in 1945. J.B.S. later married Helen Spurway.
Charlotte Franken was born in Sydenham, London. Her parents were Jewish immigrants, her father, Joseph, a German fur trader. In 1906 the family moved to Antwerp. She enrolled on a typing course in London. During the First World War her parents were interned but emigrated in 1915 to the United States.
She married Jack Burghes in 1918 and they had a son Ronnie. In 1924 however she interviewed the biologist J.B.S. Haldane for the Daily Express and they soon became friends. She then had a scandalous divorce from her husband, before marrying Haldane in 1926.
After a wartime trip to the Soviet Union, she became disillusioned with socialism, which J.B.S. still believed in, writing about it in Russian Newsreel. The Haldanes separated in 1942, divorcing in 1945. J.B.S. later married Helen Spurway.
She died in 1969 of pneumonia.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 20, 2024
I am like way too mentally ill @ the moment (hello kind gr friends leaving me comments on my reviews, if I haven't been getting back to you, it's not you, it's me) to write this the in-depth review it "deserves," but trust me when I say that this shit is nuts. and yet somehow also wildly boring? perhaps it will not come as a surprise to learn that I struggled with getting through the Eugenics Book!
like, this book really has it all. obviously the racism and anti-semitism are just balls to the wall like this is a very explicitly white supremacist text, they're always talking about how they need to maintain the dominance of the white race and there is some horrific stuff mentioned just so extremely casually and it's all just kind of part of the scenery. but then there's also like...all of the incest. our doomed lovers are siblings nicolette and christopher, both of whom are a little PERVERSE and QUEER because their mom didn't do the right exercises when she was pregnant (no, really) but also because that's just how intensely restrictive societies work: somebody's always going to pop up to challenge the norm.
I truly have no idea at this point how this even ended up on my to-read list in the first place; my best guess is maybe to blame emma donoghue, but I can't be certain. at any rate, it occasionally flirts with an interesting here or there, but the combination of the ugly racism and the fact that this is stone cold boring really kill it. do not recommend. feels like the sort of thing that is probably very interesting to people writing doctoral theses about like, the history of eugenics (and shoutout to those people for trying to figure out how to make our society LESS actively evil and eugenicist; godspeed) and basically no one else.
a few (and far between) interesting bits below:
- christopher is horny for nicolette in his gay way, of course, but he is also extremely horny for GOD and it is a huge (if underdeveloped, because this is not a well written book) plot point and because religion has been outlawed in this society (because The White Race according to this book are not particularly "mystical" because they're too scientifically minded, to which all I can say is: HA!) he dreams of a "god antagonist" and daydreams about "the more daring of them [who] had even aspired to wrestle with this unseen and unrelenting will, to defy it" because "those, such as job, who truly 'feared god' must surely have experienced the most voluptuous emotion possible to man." VOLUPTUOUS INDEED
- haldane actually has quite the gift/curse for using the weirdest words at the weirdest moments, like, right down to the dialogue tags. people are always 'suggesting' things instead of just plain saying them in moments where 'suggests' does not work in the SLIGHTEST and I wish someone had bought her one of those mean english teacher posters that are like QUIT SAYING THINGS LIKE SO AND SO SCREAMED THEIR DIALOGUE, YOUR DIALOGUE TAGS SHOULD BE UNOBTRUSIVE
- so again according to this book white people are NOT "mystical," but you know who is? GAY PEOPLE! "the excessively mystical impulse always has its root in some slight sexual perversity, both in men and women." and from all of my fellow queers rolling around (on tumblr circa 2011) in the luxurious (some might even say voluptuous) hedonism of the catholic aesthetic arose an amen or a kyrie, take your pick
- on one last ASTONISHING religion-related note, by man's world haldane meant 'man's world rather than god's' just as much if not more than she meant 'man's world rather than woman's'! when I reached this particular revelation in the book I was floored I tell u!!!!!
anyway: I can't say I recommend this book, although reading the words of people clearly smarter and less, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, caught up in the throes of an ongoing mental breakdown got more out of this text and were better and more critical readers of it, exhibit a the introduction to this edition and ehibit b this review here
...lastly: I do not anticipate this but because this is the internet should this review somehow reaches whatever white supremacist devil's advocate gargoyles are probably lurking somewhere here on goodreads dot com, let me do my little ~~~inb4~~~ and say that a) yes, I do feel entitled to give a book 1 star on the basis of its morals alone (yes, other people have noted that haldane's stance on the world she has created is curiously ambiguous, but while that's true, the biography of her that can be found at the beginning of this very edition makes abundantly clear that she was a eugenicist married to another bona fide hardcore full-steam-ahead eugenicist, so I think we can safely assume that she's cosigning at least SOME of the full-throated white supremacy and eugenics in this book), AND ALSO WHAT'S MORE is that b) on virtually every level, from prose to plot, this just plain isn't a very good book. lmao. rot in pieces
like, this book really has it all. obviously the racism and anti-semitism are just balls to the wall like this is a very explicitly white supremacist text, they're always talking about how they need to maintain the dominance of the white race and there is some horrific stuff mentioned just so extremely casually and it's all just kind of part of the scenery. but then there's also like...all of the incest. our doomed lovers are siblings nicolette and christopher, both of whom are a little PERVERSE and QUEER because their mom didn't do the right exercises when she was pregnant (no, really) but also because that's just how intensely restrictive societies work: somebody's always going to pop up to challenge the norm.
I truly have no idea at this point how this even ended up on my to-read list in the first place; my best guess is maybe to blame emma donoghue, but I can't be certain. at any rate, it occasionally flirts with an interesting here or there, but the combination of the ugly racism and the fact that this is stone cold boring really kill it. do not recommend. feels like the sort of thing that is probably very interesting to people writing doctoral theses about like, the history of eugenics (and shoutout to those people for trying to figure out how to make our society LESS actively evil and eugenicist; godspeed) and basically no one else.
a few (and far between) interesting bits below:
"you see, in those days a mother of the white race was required to be an employee in the home of the father of her children. how they attempted it we cannot imagine, but we know that an individual cannot accomplish more than one important task successfully, could not expect to. some one always suffered, and the order of the sufferers was first the mothers, then the children, then the man."
- christopher is horny for nicolette in his gay way, of course, but he is also extremely horny for GOD and it is a huge (if underdeveloped, because this is not a well written book) plot point and because religion has been outlawed in this society (because The White Race according to this book are not particularly "mystical" because they're too scientifically minded, to which all I can say is: HA!) he dreams of a "god antagonist" and daydreams about "the more daring of them [who] had even aspired to wrestle with this unseen and unrelenting will, to defy it" because "those, such as job, who truly 'feared god' must surely have experienced the most voluptuous emotion possible to man." VOLUPTUOUS INDEED
- haldane actually has quite the gift/curse for using the weirdest words at the weirdest moments, like, right down to the dialogue tags. people are always 'suggesting' things instead of just plain saying them in moments where 'suggests' does not work in the SLIGHTEST and I wish someone had bought her one of those mean english teacher posters that are like QUIT SAYING THINGS LIKE SO AND SO SCREAMED THEIR DIALOGUE, YOUR DIALOGUE TAGS SHOULD BE UNOBTRUSIVE
- so again according to this book white people are NOT "mystical," but you know who is? GAY PEOPLE! "the excessively mystical impulse always has its root in some slight sexual perversity, both in men and women." and from all of my fellow queers rolling around (on tumblr circa 2011) in the luxurious (some might even say voluptuous) hedonism of the catholic aesthetic arose an amen or a kyrie, take your pick
- on one last ASTONISHING religion-related note, by man's world haldane meant 'man's world rather than god's' just as much if not more than she meant 'man's world rather than woman's'! when I reached this particular revelation in the book I was floored I tell u!!!!!
anyway: I can't say I recommend this book, although reading the words of people clearly smarter and less, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, caught up in the throes of an ongoing mental breakdown got more out of this text and were better and more critical readers of it, exhibit a the introduction to this edition and ehibit b this review here
...lastly: I do not anticipate this but because this is the internet should this review somehow reaches whatever white supremacist devil's advocate gargoyles are probably lurking somewhere here on goodreads dot com, let me do my little ~~~inb4~~~ and say that a) yes, I do feel entitled to give a book 1 star on the basis of its morals alone (yes, other people have noted that haldane's stance on the world she has created is curiously ambiguous, but while that's true, the biography of her that can be found at the beginning of this very edition makes abundantly clear that she was a eugenicist married to another bona fide hardcore full-steam-ahead eugenicist, so I think we can safely assume that she's cosigning at least SOME of the full-throated white supremacy and eugenics in this book), AND ALSO WHAT'S MORE is that b) on virtually every level, from prose to plot, this just plain isn't a very good book. lmao. rot in pieces
October 4, 2024
265 pages of everybody harassing a poor, sensitive, musical gay boy. So sad
But really this was a pretty interesting read. The society here is similar to a lot of the utopias published around this time, particularly "Looking Backwards," and "Moving the Mountain," but is far more ambivalent, which is why it can also easily be classed as dystopic. As an ambivalent utopia it foreshadows the wave of ambiguous utopias of the 60s-80s. The most interesting character here is definitely Christopher, who is mystically, emotionally and religious inclined, making him a very poor fit for this scientific society which is attempting to optimize and categorize the entirety of existence, without room for deeper meaning or wonder. It seems like the author herself is conflicted - despite her real-life commitment to eugenics - so both "sides" of the debate are convincing, and the inevitable victory of the scientific society at the end is portrayed ambiguously and mournfully, as if even if it is a good thing, the loss of views like Christopher's is a tragedy.
All in all, this primary conflict and ambiguity makes it far more interesting and adept at exploring these ideas (which were widely contemplated) at the times than some of its contemporaries. Despite all of the vocational motherhood stuff (which reminded me so strongly of Gilman), its surprisingly permissive to women, who are allowed to do all sorts of jobs if they're not mothers. So not as bad as some of the utopias/dystopias from the same time.
But really this was a pretty interesting read. The society here is similar to a lot of the utopias published around this time, particularly "Looking Backwards," and "Moving the Mountain," but is far more ambivalent, which is why it can also easily be classed as dystopic. As an ambivalent utopia it foreshadows the wave of ambiguous utopias of the 60s-80s. The most interesting character here is definitely Christopher, who is mystically, emotionally and religious inclined, making him a very poor fit for this scientific society which is attempting to optimize and categorize the entirety of existence, without room for deeper meaning or wonder. It seems like the author herself is conflicted - despite her real-life commitment to eugenics - so both "sides" of the debate are convincing, and the inevitable victory of the scientific society at the end is portrayed ambiguously and mournfully, as if even if it is a good thing, the loss of views like Christopher's is a tragedy.
All in all, this primary conflict and ambiguity makes it far more interesting and adept at exploring these ideas (which were widely contemplated) at the times than some of its contemporaries. Despite all of the vocational motherhood stuff (which reminded me so strongly of Gilman), its surprisingly permissive to women, who are allowed to do all sorts of jobs if they're not mothers. So not as bad as some of the utopias/dystopias from the same time.
March 29, 2025
I picked up this book after seeing it recommended, but it ended up disappointing me. I usually force myself to finish books, so I pushed through this one, but it just wasn’t very good. The story didn’t really pull me in, and I found it hard to stay interested. That being said, I can see how some people might find it intriguing, it just wasn’t for me.
June 13, 2024
Anyone interested in the history of science fiction will find this 1926 book on the theme of eugenics fascinating, even though it reads more like a discussion featuring some interesting, and sometimes controversial, ideas than a novel. I was reminded of the dull experience of reading Aldous Huxley's Island. A fuller review, including a description of the wonderful Radium Age series from MIT, can be found here.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews