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A great look at the development of eugenics and how eugenicist ideas continue to influence society and public policy. I'm increasingly convinced that understanding and combating eugenics is essential for revolutionary movements in the US, especially in the era of covid. As the author shows, oftentimes even eugenics' opponents failed to seriously challenge the core assumptions of the eugenicist worldview, which have basically come to be seen as common sense. She also explores the context in which eugenicist ideas arose in the context of society transitioning to a more urban and industrial (and capitalist, though the author largely avoids the c-word) political economy and the state increasingly struggled with what to do with the poor and various disfavored groups, eventually seeking to blame heredity. Sterilization was just the most monstrous and obvious manifestation of this idea, and the conflation of the eugenics movement with sterilization can somewhat impede our understanding of the idea's ongoing impact. Buck v. Bell is still technically good law, and we're now in an ongoing pandemic in which the vulnerable are largely being abandoned to "fall by the wayside" in Fauci's words. Eugenics never went away.