GOBINEAU, JOSEPH-ARTHUR, Count of. — Born at Ville d’Avray on 14 July 1816, died at Turin on 13 Oct. 1882. A diplomat in many European and non-European capitals, he was a prolific and varied writer. He composed poetry, short stories, novels such as *Les Pléiades* (1874); dramas like *La Renaissance* (1877), a brilliant evocation of 16th-century Italy through its most significant figures, including Savonarola, Cesare Borgia, Julius II, Leo X, Michelangelo; travel books, works of history, religion and philosophy such as *Religions et philosophies dans l'Asie centrale* (1865), which earned him fame as an Orientalist; and political essays like *La troisième République et ce qu'elle vaut* and *Ce qui arriva à la France en 1870*. His principal work is the *Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines*, published in four volumes between 1853 and 1855, which sets forth his anti-democratic and racist ideas.
Starting from the premise that the problems of history can and must be explained in the light of ethnic principles, he held that the destiny of peoples is determined by racial differences and that all that is great in the world has been accomplished by the strong races, which dominate until they remain unmixed with the weak. Thus the Aryans, who prevailed wherever they settled, did not decline until they intermarried with the conquered, giving rise to those hybrid races by which the world is now peopled. The Aryan race, however, has not entirely disappeared, but there still remain some pure individuals scattered throughout the world to represent it, “sons of kings” and “calandri,” as they are called in *Les Pléiades*.
According to Gobineau, the people among whom these individuals are most numerous is the Germanic people. This explains the success of the *Essai* in Germany, where it nourished modern racist theories.