“Except for the Emperor there is no one in this desert full of thieves”
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Arthur de Gobineau
Arthur de Gobineau, Count de Gobineau was a French writer and diplomat who is best known for helping introduce scientific race theory and "racial demography", and for developing the theory of the Aryan master race and Nordicism. He was an elitist who, in the immediate aftermath of the Revolutions of 1848, wrote An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races. In it he argued that aristocrats were su…
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culture · French diplomat and writer (1816–1882) · writer · diplomat · politician · poet · sculptor · anthropologist · journalist · philosopher · orientalist · race · also Arthur de Gobineau, Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau, Ariel des Feux, Joseph-Arthur Gobineau, Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, Gobineau
Born 14 July 1816 · Died 13 October 1882 · Q264918
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2026· 7 entries
“The conservative feeling is amongst the most powerful in the national spirit and these people relinquish the past only step by step and with extreme caution”
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“The Diet is a business office for the German bureaucracy—it is very far from being a real political body”
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“The only greatness is that of wealth, and as everyone can acquire this, its ownership is independent of any of the qualities reserved to superior natures”
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“How I despair of a society which is no longer anything, except in spirit, and which has no heart left”
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“Money has become the principle of power and honour. Money dominates business; money regulates the population; money governs; money salves consciences; money is the criterion for judging the esteem due to men”
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“My birthday is July 14th, the date on which the Bastille was captured-which goes to prove how opposites may come together”
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2017· 1 entry
JSTOR Daily: Arthur de Gobineau and the Short Story
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1887· 1 entry
Which concludes with its protagonists drowning in the blood of the Chinese they have killed
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1882· 2 entries
Died 1882-10-13.
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“Etre heureux, c'est une vertu et une des plus puissantes.”
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1879· 1 entry
Gobineau attempted to prove his own racial superiority over the rest of the French with his pseudo-family history Histoire de Ottar Jarl
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1878· 1 entry
Awarded Bordin Prize (1878).
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1874· 1 entry
Gobineau met the homosexual German diplomat Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg, in Stockholm and became very close to him
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1872· 2 entries
“s remote location in Scandinavia, Aryan blood had been better preserved as compared to France. Writing about the accession of Oscar II to the Swedish throne in 1872 he said:”
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Career landmark: ambassador of France to Sweden (1872–1877).
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1871· 1 entry
Poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt who met Gobineau described him thus:Gobineau is a man of about 55, with grey hair and moustache, dark rather prominent eyes, sallow complexion, and tall figure with brisk almost jerky gait
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1870· 2 entries
“What Happened to France in 1870”
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Was involved in a bloody street brawl with the son-in-law of a Brazilian senator who did not appreciate having his nation being put down
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1869· 1 entry
Gobineau was appointed the French minister to Brazil
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1868· 2 entries
Awarded Commander of the Legion of Honour (1868).
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Gobineau wrote that, without Greece, he would not have been able to do many of the things that he did ("Sans la Grèce, je n'aurais pas fait beaucoup de choses que j'ai faites
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1865· 1 entry
Gobineau published Les religions et les philosophies dans l'Asie centrale ("Religions and Philosophies in Central Asia"), an account of his travels in Persia and encounters with the various esoteric Islamic sects he disc
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1864· 2 entries
Career landmark: minister plenipotentiary (1864–1868).
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Gobineau became the French minister to Greece
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1863· 1 entry
Career landmark: Mayor of Trie-Château (1863–1870).
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1861· 2 entries
Gobineau returned to Tehran as the French minister and lived a modest, ascetic lifestyle
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Variously served as minister to Persia, Brazil, Greece, and Sweden
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1859· 2 entries
An Anglo-French dispute over the French fishing rights on the French Shore of Newfoundland led to an Anglo-French commission being sent to Newfoundland to find a resolution to the dispute
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Wrote, "When we come to the French people, I genuinely favor absolute power", and as long as Napoleon III ruled as an autocrat, he had Gobineau's support
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1858· 1 entry
The Foreign Minister Count Alexandre Colonna-Walewski had tried to send Gobineau to the French legation in Beijing
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1856· 1 entry
Two American "race scientists", Josiah C
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1855· 3 entries
Awarded Officer of the Legion of Honour (1855).
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Gobineau seemingly accepts the prevailing Christian doctrine that all human beings shared the common ancestors Adam and Eve (monogenism as opposed to polygenism)
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Gobineau left Paris to become the first secretary at the French legation in Tehran, Persia (modern Iran)
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1852· 1 entry
And got to know several Orientalists, like Julius von Mohl, very well
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1851· 1 entry
Awarded Knight of the Legion of Honour (1851).
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1849· 1 entry
When Tocqueville became Foreign Minister, his friend Gobineau became his chef de cabinet
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1846· 1 entry
Gobineau married Clémence Gabrielle Monnerot
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1841· 1 entry
Gobineau scored his first major success when an article he submitted to Revue des deux Mondes was published on 15 April 1841
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1835· 1 entry
Gobineau failed the entrance exams to the St
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1832· 1 entry
Although nominally independent, Greece had become a joint Anglo-French-Russian protectorate
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1831· 1 entry
De Gobineau's father took custody of his three children, and his son spent the rest of his adolescence in Lorient, in Brittany
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1816· 2 entries
Born 1816-07-14.
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“Orsay or be fired; he chose the former. Gobineau spent his last years living in Rome, a lonely and embittered man whose principal friends were the Wagners and Eulenburg. He saw himself as a great sculptor and attempted to support himself by selling his sculpture. Legacy and influence Gobineau”
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