Arthur Gobineau

Arthur de Gobineau
Portrait of Gobineau, by the Comtesse de la Tour, 1876
Born	(1816-07-14)14 July 1816 Ville-d'Avray, Hauts-de-Seine
Died	13 October 1882(1882-10-13) (aged 66) Turin
Nationality	French

Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French who was best known by his contemporaries as a novelist, diplomat and travel writer but is today most remembered for developing the theory of the Aryan master race and helping to legitimise racism by scientific racist theory and racial demography. Gobineau was an elitist who, in the immediate aftermath of the Revolutions of 1848, wrote a 1400-page book, An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, in which he claimed that were superior to commoners and that they possessed more Aryan genetic traits because of less inbreeding with inferior races (Alpines and Mediterraneans).

Gobineau's writings were quickly praised by white supremacist, pro-slavery Americans like Josiah C. Nott and Henry Hotze, who translated his book into English but omitted around 1000 pages of the original book, including those parts that negatively described Americans as a racially mixed population. Gobineau's writings were also influential on prominent anti-Semites such as Richard Wagner, the Romanian politician professor A. C. Cuza and leaders of the Nazi Party, who later edited and re-published his work.