J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy has been held up as a guidebook for understanding the 2016 election, but his logic is rooted in an enduring and dangerous myth about race in Appalachia. By Elizabeth Catte.

An early promoter and populariser of Darwin's evolutionary theory, the German biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel was a hugely influential figure of the late 19th century. Bernd Brunner looks at how a trip to Sri Lanka sowed the seeds for not only Haeckel's majestic illustrations from his Art Forms in Nature, for which he is perhaps best known today, but also his disturbing ideas on race and eugenics.

Iceland has almost eliminated Down syndrome by aborting virtually 100 percent of fetuses that test positive. By Julian Quinones, Arijeta Lajka.

Elizabeth Letts, the bestselling author of ‘The Eighty Dollar Champion’ describes the Nazis’ secret stud farm, where dubious visionaries imagined a breed of perfect (and perfectly white) horse.

Malaga Island was home to a fishing community. But in 1911, a racist pseudoscience and greedy politicians changed all that. By David Jester.