- published: 08 Nov 2012
- views: 11529
The Nordic race was one of the putative sub-races into which some late 19th to mid 20th century anthropologists divided the Caucasian race. People of the Nordic type to predominate in the Nordic countries. The psychological traits of Nordics were described as truthful, equitable, competitive, naïve, reserved and individualistic. Other supposed sub-races were the Alpine race, Dinaric race, East Baltic race and the Mediterranean race.
Nordicism was an ideology of racial separatism which viewed Nordics as an endangered racial group, as identified by Madison Grant in The Passing of the Great Race. This ideology was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in some Central and Northern European countries as well as in North America. Nazism claimed that the "Nordic race" within the greater Caucasian race, constituted a master race or Herrenvolk.
In the mid 19th century, scientific racism developed the theory of Aryanism, holding that Europeans ("Aryans") were an innately superior branch of humanity, responsible for most of its greatest achievements. Aryanism was derived from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages constituted a distinctive race or subrace of the larger Caucasian race.