The human species is very young, but in a short time it has acquired
some striking, if biologically superficial, variations across the
planet. As this book shows, however, none of those biological variations
can be understood in terms of discrete races, which do not actually
exist as definable entities. Starting with a consideration of evolution
and the mechanisms of diversification in nature, this book moves to an
examination of attitudes to human variation throughout history, showing
that it was only with the advent of slavery that considerations of human
variation became politicized. It then embarks on a consideration of how
racial classifications have been applied to genomic studies,
demonstrating how individualized genomics is a much more effective
approach to clinical treatments. It also shows how racial stratification
does nothing to help us understand the phenomenon of human variation, at
either the genomic or physical levels.