The Bell Curve Debate

The Bell Curve Debate: History, Documents, Opinions

File:The Bell Curve Debate.jpg
Editors	Russell Jacoby, Naomi Glauberman
Subject	The Bell Curve
Publisher	Random House
Publication date	1995
Media type	Print (paperback)
Pages	720
ISBN	0-8129-2587-4
OCLC	31969295
Dewey Decimal	305.9/082 20
LC Class	BF431 .B3748 1995

The Bell Curve Debate is 1995 book edited by University of California, Los Angeles historian Russell Jacoby and writer Naomi Glauberman. A response to The Bell Curve (1994), by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, it includes 81 articles by 81 authors. Contemporary authors whose writings are collected in the book include K. Anthony Appiah, Gregg Easterbrook, Howard Gardner, Eugene D. Genovese, Nathan Glazer, Stephen Jay Gould, Bob Herbert, Richard Herrnstein, Christopher Hitchens, Irving Louis Horowitz, Arthur Jensen, Leon J. Kamin, Charles Lane, Glenn C. Loury, Richard E. Nisbett, Nell Irvin Painter, Hugh Pearson, Adolph Reed Jr., Carl Rowan, Alan Ryan, Brent Staples, Ellen Willis, and Christopher Winship. Jacoby and Glauberman republishe historical materials by authors including Carl Brigham, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Francis Galton, Walter Lippmann, Karl Pearson, and Lewis Terman. The publisher, Times Books, describes the book as a compilation of "the best of recent reviews and essays, and salient documents drawn from the curious history of this heated debate" capturing "the fervor, anger, and scope of an almost unprecedented national argument over the very idea of democracy and the possibility of a tolerant, multiracial America. It is an essential companion and answer to The Bell Curve and provides scholarship and polemic from every point of view."

Since publication, The Bell Curve Debate has been cited by books describing the issues surrounding IQ testing and scores of various social groups in the United States.

See also

• History of the race and intelligence controversy