Phrenology is a now discounted pseudo-science that was very popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It argued that a person’s character could be determined by the shape of their skull. Skulls were collected from around the world, measured, catalogued and arranged according to ‘types’ that reinforced racial and social stereotypes and hierarchies. Such ideas are now regarded as racist.
The study of phrenology, also known as ‘comparative anatomy’ was at the height of its popularity in the middle of the nineteenth century and was used as justification for imperialism in Asia and Africa and the maintenance of a rigid class system in Britain.
This book, the second edition of John William Jackson’s treatise Ethnology and Phrenology was influential in defining British notions of ethnicity as its imperial power grew. Jackson had studied at Edinburgh University, one of the main centres for phrenology and used his descriptions to justify the ‘paternal’ role of empire.