Superior

It is my hope that you will never have to read this book, because the subject matter that it deals with is truly vile. However, sometimes you have to be around that one person who keeps suggesting that there's an essential difference between races. That is when you break out this book. This book clearly and methodically outlines the history of racism as well of the (lack of ) science surrounding race and genetics. It is a great guide not for debunking racists because racists tend not to care about facts, but for demonstrating the unreasonableness of it to others.

3.5 stars

This is by no means a bad book, but it's very...pop history/criticism. It's going to be great for lots of people, and I'm glad Saini wrote it. But if you're already familiar with the history of eugenics or want a more scholarly take, this isn't the book for you.

A very important book, and it clearly makes the case not just that biological race does not exist, but that nevertheless science all too often still uses race as a category - leading not just to reinforcement of stereotypes but also junk science. And of course on top of that there has been a strong resurgence of fascism and the anti-intellectualism coming along with it.
The book reads like a long journalistic article, I think it could have benefited from more editing to make the central points stand out more crisply from the narrative.