In the 19th Century, industrialization unleashed fears of a biological and social disintegration of modern societies; fears which did not simply disappear in the face of science. Thus, right up to the 1980s, racial biology attempted to determine genetic differences between races and social classes through laborious anthropological measurements. The goal was to restore a supposedly »natural« social order which would be able to safeguard the middle classes against the »inferior« races and social classes. Thomas Etzemüllers societal analysis shows that racial anthropology is an ideal educational example of how a particular worldview can be objectified with scientific methods.
