Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court and Buck v. Bell (Johns Hopkins University Press), the newly published book by Georgia State University College of Law Professor Paul A. Lombardo, has been the topic of recent news stories and critical reviews.

In his book, Lombardo provides the only fully documented account ever written of Buck v. Bell, a notorious U.S. Supreme Court decision that led to more than sixty thousand involuntary sterilizations of people described as "feebleminded and socially inadequate." 

The book documents how the case was initiated to hide the shame of a poor Virginia girl named Carrie Buck, pregnant after she had been raped. Buck was the only time in Supreme Court history that an intrusive medical procedure-involuntary sterilization-was endorsed as a tool of government eugenic policy. It is doubly infamous for the court's opinion, written by renowned Justice Oliver Wendell Jr. Holmes' declaration that "Three generations of imbeciles are enough" led to lifelong infamy for Carrie Buck and her family.

In his review published on The Internet Review of Books Web site,  Bob Sanchez writes: "America's proud history includes dark chapters we all know about, including slavery and Jim Crow. Fewer seem to know of the eugenics movement and its strong push for 'racial purity' not that many years ago. Three Generations, No Imbeciles will likely anger you as it did me, but we can take heart that some of the country rejected this cruel form of pseudoscience all along. Armed with knowledge from this excellent book, we can hope we never return to the mistakes of our past."

In his Science Snapshot, published in USA Today, Dan Vergano writes that Lombardo, through years of research, found that scientists and lawyers, including defense attorney, conspired against Carrie Buck. "The fix was in," says Lombardo, in a phone interview.

Additional reviews of the book can be found online on the Criminal Law Library Blog and Publishers Weekly. 

To read more about the book and hear an audio interview with Lombardo, go to the College of Law News site.