Editing Arthur de Gobineau (section)

=== Reaction to Gobineau's essay ===
The ''Essai'' attracted mostly negative reviews from French critics, which Gobineau used as a proof of the supposed truth of his racial theories, writing "the French, who are always ready to set anything afire—materially speaking—and who respect nothing, either in religion or politics, have always been the world's greatest cowards in matters of science".{{sfn|Biddiss|1970|p=148}} However, events such as the expansion of European and American influence overseas and the [[unification of Germany]] led Gobineau to alter his opinion to believe the "[[White people|white race]]" could be saved. The German-born American historian [[George Mosse]] argued that Gobineau projected his fear and hatred of the French middle and working classes onto Asian and Black people.{{sfn|Davies|1988|p=60}}

Summarizing Mosse's argument, Davies argued that: "The self-serving, materialistic oriental of the ''Essai'' was really an anti-capitalist's portrait of the money-grubbing French middle class" while "the sensual, unintelligent and violent negro" that Gobineau portrayed in the ''Essai'' was an aristocratic caricature of the French poor.{{sfn|Davies|1988|pp=60–61}} In his writings on the French peasantry, Gobineau characteristically insisted in numerous anecdotes, which he said were based on personal experience, that French farmers were coarse, crude people incapable of learning, indeed of any sort of thinking beyond the most rudimentary level of thought. As the American critic Michelle Wright wrote, "the peasant may inhabit the land, but they are certainly not part of it".{{sfn|Wright|1999|p=839}} Wright further noted the very marked similarity between Gobineau's picture of the French peasantry and his view of blacks.{{sfn|Wright|1999|pp=831–852}}