Why read Ape to Apollo?

Book cover of Ape to Apollo: Aesthetics and the Idea of Race in the 18th Century

Book description

Ape to Apollo is the first book to follow the development in the eighteenth century of the idea of race as it shaped and was shaped by the idea of aesthetics. Twelve full-color illustrations and sixty-five black-and-white illustrations from publications and artists of the day allow the reader to see…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Ape to Apollo as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Andrew Curran

Author

David Bindman was among the first scholars to dive deeply into the critically important relationship between aesthetics (including standards of beauty) and the emergence of race within the nascent human sciences. Bindman is a very careful scholar who, in addition to being a superb art historian, pays careful attention to the subtle shifts in terminology (and iconography) that reflect substantive changes in the way that non-European groups were seen and depicted during the Enlightenment era, be they “savages,” Blacks, or Asians. Scholars of race will find unexpected links between aesthetics and race here, including Winckelmann on the link between climate…

From Henry's list on The best books about race and the enlightenment.