circumstance that he is all black, but because he is the commonest victim of slavery, and seems especially susceptible to a submissive estate. He is easily impressed by the superior organization or the menacing tactics of his raiders and drivers, and, as I know him, he is relatively lazy or at least disorganized, random, feckless and witless when free in the bush, while for his masters he will work faithfully." On the other hand, there's a strain of at least mild anti racism often discernible in Peattie's commentary. For example, in his discussion of Linnaeus, the Swedish founding father of taxonomy, Peattie describes, in 1936, how Linnaeus grew up in a small, provincial town far from the scientific capitals of Europe: "To the astonishment of all the wise men, he (Linnaeus) was not a product of Wittenberg, or the parks of Versailles or even of English country life, that nurse of so much delicate feeling for natural beauty. But genius so seldom grows where the highly born and the members of the eugenical societies tell us to expect it!" (This is a slap against the American Eugenics Society, a national group formed in 1921, which was prominent in the 1930s, promoting "racial betterment." During that time, the group consisted of "mostly prominent and wealthy members who more often than not were non-scientists.") Furthermore, according to Peattie's grandson, David Peattie, "In the period following the bombing of Pearl Harbor... [Donald Culross Peattie] spoke out eloquently against the internment of Japanese Americans, and wrote letters to the editor in their defense". That was after he witnessed a Japanese gardener, who had been hired by the owner of a house he was renting in California, interned in the camps. Thus, Peattie's belief in the inferiority of people of African descent seems to be specific to them, and does not seem to have extended to other non-white people, nor implied a broader support of eugenics. Books Vence, the Story of a Provencal Town through Five Thousand Years (published privately in Nice in 1930 and circulated only in France) Happy Kingdom (date unknown, written with Louise Redfield Peattie, published by Blackie & Son, Ltd. in Glasgow) Flora of the Indiana Dunes (1930) Trees You Want to Know (1934) An Almanac for Moderns (1935) Singing in the Wilderness: A Salute to John James Audubon (1935) Green Laurels: The Lives and Achievements of the Great Naturalists (1936)