Into The Darkness

Theodore Lothrop Stoddard (June 29, 1883 - May 1, 1950) was an American political scientist, historian, journalist, anthropologist, eugenicist, pacifist, and anti-immigration advocate who wrote a number of books which are cited by historians as prominent examples of early 20th-century scientific racism. During World War II he wrote Into the Darkness, about the effect of war on Nazi Germany. Stoddard was relatively nonpartisan in his coverage of the Nazi regime, but he did express concern for the welfare of the European Jewish community, foreseeing intense violence against the Jews. He was always wary of and often opposed to the Nazis, despite their common support for eugenics. In "The Rising Tide of Color," Stoddard blasted the ethnic supremacism of the Germans, blaming the "Teutonic imperialists" for the outbreak of the First World War, and the Nazis, of course, simply carried this ethnic supremacism to more extreme ends. He opposed what he saw as the disuniting of the white peoples through intense nationalism within Europe. Nevertheless, after World War II, Stoddard‘s theories were judged as too closely aligned with those of the Nazis and he suffered a large drop in popularity. (Guterl 2004) His death in 1950 from cancer went almost entirely unreported, despite his previously broad readership and influence. (Fant 2000)