The Nordic race was one of the three sub-races into which the Caucasian race was divided by anthropologists in the first half of the 20th century. (The three sub-types being Nordic, Alpine and Mediterranean.) People of the Nordic type were described as having blond or brown hair, light colored eyes, fair skin and tall stature, and were considered to predominate in countries of Northern Europe. The notion is today considered ideological rather than scientific.
Nordicism (also "Nordic theory") is an ideology of racial supremacy that claims that a Nordic race, within the greater Caucasian race, constituted a master race.
This ideology was popular in the late-19th and early 20th centuries in some Northern European countries as well as North America, and achieved mainstream success throughout Germany via National Socialism during the Third Reich.
Most ancient writers were from the Southern European civilisations, and generally took the view that northerners were barbarians. Pale skin and light hair were described as signs of barbarism by Polemon of Laodicea in his book Physiognomica.Pseudo-Aristotle noted differences between Greeks and the people of the north, believing that Greek superiority was visible in their medium skin tone, as opposed to pale northerners and dark southerners and Africans. He claimed that blue eyes were a sign of a cowardly nature, and that they indicated poor eyesight.