We are surprised in recent years whenever we realize the impact that racial theories and racist perceptions continue to have in more and more European countries. The ideas that classify human groups into races based on their external physical characteristics, and hierarchize them by attributing intellectual ability, cultural level, and social organization to these characteristics, are products of the European Enlightenment and European colonialism. In the West, for about a century, they were widely accepted and valid scientific positions with a huge impact on the general public, and fueled state policies to improve racial quality in many countries, before they faced international rejection after their association with the crimes of Nazism during World War II.

The texts in this volume constitute a first attempt to study the dissemination of racial theories in Greece and the multiple meanings that the concept of race takes over time: They trace both the paths through which racial theories spread and their adaptations to Greek contexts, from the late 19th century to the present day; they show how racial theories influenced the formation of new specializations in Greek universities, fueled scientific and professional debates, and supported scientific proposals for the adoption of eugenic policies; they investigate how racial theories or popular versions of them are incorporated into political ideologies in the first half of the 20th century and how they are used to promote national policies; they also detect elements of the dissemination of racial theories in literary texts or in the works of critics, historians, and art theorists; finally, they examine the survival of racial theories in contemporary manifestations of the intertwining of nationalism with racism and anti-Semitism, as reflected in legal, scientific, populist, or religious discourse.