[BIOLOGICAL RACISM] Betrachtungen über die Fruchtbarkeit, oder Unfruchtbarkeit, über den vormahligen und gegenwärtigen Zustand der vornehmsten Länder in Asien,

von C. Meiners…. [=Observations on fertility and sterility in the ancient and present states of the main regions of Asia]. Lübeck und Leipzig : im Verlage bey Bohn und Compagnie, 1795-96. Two volumes, octavo (195 x 125 mm), matching contemporary bindings of marbled papered boards (lightly rubbed, first volume with small paper loss, otherwise very good), spines with contrasting leather title- and volume-pieces in gilt; pastedowns with early nineteenth-century institutional inscriptions dated 1822, versos of titles with discreet armorial stamp; pp. vi, 442; iv, 492; text in German; bindings firm, contents with browning and occasional light spotting, but otherwise crisp and clean.

Christoph Meiners (1747-1810) was a German historian and philosopher of the Enlightenment period, although his ideas ran counter to those of most other Enlightenment thinkers. Today he is notorious for his racial theories which promoted the idea of the biological inequality of peoples. In essence, his philosophy constituted a form of scientific racism, as he constructed a hierarchy of races – the white race being the most superior because of its traits of beauty, intellect, nobility and virtue. Meiners was also an apologist for the transatlantic slave trade.

His Betrachtungen über die Fruchtbarkeit, oder Unfruchtbarkeit is a comparative study of fertility and sterility  across the different regions of Asia – a term used very broadly here, as Australia and indeed all of Oceania fall within the scope of Meiners’ investigation. As a polygenist, Meiners held that each race had its own separate origins and therefore distinctive genetic characteristics; the present work seeks to find evidence to support this theory by highlighting the very contrasting population densities that exist throughout all of these regions, and drawing attention to the distinctions between regions of largely undeveloped nature and those with a cultural imprint.

The last five pages in the first volume comprise a bibliography of all works consulted by the author in the writing of that volume, mostly European voyage and travel accounts on the Levant, Arabia, India, China and Tartary, from classical writers of antiquity to those of the late eighteenth-century, including Marco Polo, Ramusio, Du Halde, Hastings, Thevenot, Sonnerat, Niebuhr, and many others. The second volume contains a fifty-page section on New Holland and the South Seas; the bibliography of voyage books consulted in this volume (most written after 1700) includes the accounts of Dampier, Cook, Hawkesworth, Forster, Bougainville, Lesseps, Phillip, Barrington, Hunter, Tench, and White.

No copy of this work traced in Australian libraries.