A01=John Carson
Accountability
Affirmative action
Alfred Binet
Analogy
Anecdotal evidence
Arthur O. Lovejoy
Association of ideas
Author_John Carson
Category=JBCC9
Category=JMR
Category=NHTB
Charles Spearman
Consciousness
Credential
Decentralization
Determination
Education
Elitism
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Equal opportunity
Eugenics
Explanation
G. Stanley Hall
Henry H. Goddard
Hereditarianism
Heritability
Holism
Human intelligence
Ideal type
Ideology
Individual psychology
Inference
Ingenuity
Innate intelligence
Intelligence assessment
Intelligence quotient
Intelligentsia
James Mark Baldwin
Just-noticeable difference
Juste milieu
Malet
Marquis de Condorcet
Measurement
Melville J. Herskovits
Meritocracy
Morality
Of Education
On Intelligence
Perfectionism (psychology)
Philosopher
Philosophy
Phrenology
Positivism
Pragmatism
Psychological evaluation
Psychologist
Psychology
Race and intelligence
Relativism
Result
Science
Self-image
Self-interest
Sensibility
Solidarism
Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales
State of nature
Suggestibility
Superiority (short story)
Temple of Reason
The Administrative State
Theory
Thought
Treatise
Virtues (number and structure)
Product details
- ISBN 9780691017150
- Weight: 482g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 19 Nov 2006
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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How have modern democracies squared their commitment to equality with their fear that disparities in talent and intelligence might be natural, persistent, and consequential? In this wide-ranging account of American and French understandings of merit, talent, and intelligence over the past two centuries, John Carson tells the fascinating story of how two nations wrestled scientifically with human inequalities and their social and political implications. Surveying a broad array of political tracts, philosophical treatises, scientific works, and journalistic writings, Carson chronicles the gradual embrace of the IQ version of intelligence in the United States, while in France, the birthplace of the modern intelligence test, expert judgment was consistently prized above such quantitative measures. He also reveals the crucial role that determinations of, and contests over, merit have played in both societies--they have helped to organize educational systems, justify racial hierarchies, classify army recruits, and direct individuals onto particular educational and career paths.
A contribution to both the history of science and intellectual history, The Measure of Merit illuminates the shadow languages of inequality that have haunted the American and French republics since their inceptions.
John Carson is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Director of the Science, Technology, and Society Program at the University of Michigan.
