Culling the Masses questions the widely held view that in the long run democracy and racism cannot coexist. David Scott FitzGerald and David Cook-Martín show that democracies were the first countries in the Americas to select immigrants by race, and undemocratic states the first to outlaw discrimination. Through analysis of legal records from twenty-two countries between 1790 and 2010, the authors present a history of the rise and fall of racial selection in the Western Hemisphere. The United States led the way in using legal means to exclude "inferior" ethnic groups. Starting in 1790, Congress began passing nationality and immigration laws that prevented Africans and Asians from becoming citizens, on the grounds that they were inherently incapable of self-government. Similar policies were soon adopted by the self-governing colonies and dominions of the British Empire, eventually spreading across Latin America as well. Undemocratic regimes in Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Cuba reversed their discriminatory laws in the 1930s and 1940s, decades ahead of the United States and Canada. The conventional claim that racism and democracy are antithetical―because democracy depends on ideals of equality and fairness, which are incompatible with the notion of racial inferiority―cannot explain why liberal democracies were leaders in promoting racist policies and laggards in eliminating them. Ultimately, the authors argue, the changed racial geopolitics of World War II and the Cold War was necessary to convince North American countries to reform their immigration and citizenship laws. By any yardstick, this is a major work of scholarship. ( Population Studies: A Journal of Demography ) The book should be read widely, and especially by scholars of race/ethnicity, Latin America, international politics, world polity, immigration, and political sociology...The book is a role model for how to do historical and political sociology. - American Journal of Sociology American Sociological Association, Distinguished Scholarly Book Award , 2017 - Midwest Sociological Society, Distinguished Book Award , 2017 - American Political Science Association, Migration and Citizenship Section Best Book Award , 2015 - American Sociological Association, Political SociologySection Best Book Award , 2015 - American Sociological Association, International Migration Section Thomas& Znaniecki Best Book Award , 2015 - Honorable Mention, Immigration and EthnicHistory Society, Theodore Saloutos Book Prize , 2015 The scope and breadth of the data collection effort is truly astounding. This alone represents a phenomenal achievement and an enormous contribution to scholarship on immigration policy. - Ethnic and Racial Studies The scope and ambition of David Scott FitzGerald and David Cook-Martin's Culling the Masses can only be described as awesome. - Labour/Le Travail Table of Contents: 1. Introduction 2. The Organizational Landscape: From Eugenics to Anti-Racism 3. The United States: Paragon of Liberal Democracy and Racism 4. Canada: Between Neighbor and Empire 5. Cuba: Whitening an Island 6. Mexico: Selecting Those Who Never Came 7. Brazil: Selling the Myth of Racial Democracy 8. Argentina: Crucible of European Nations? 9. Conclusion Appendix: Ethnic Selection in Sixteen Countries [Angela S. García] Abbreviations Notes References Acknowledgments Index David Scott FitzGerald is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego. David Cook-Martín is Professor of Sociology at Grinnell College.