An anthropologist challenges claims that deep-seated racial instincts explain national conflict, rejecting ideas of an inherently superior blond or Aryan race and arguing there is no scientific basis for racial hierarchies. The essay distinguishes linguistic, cultural, and political identities from physical types, shows how bodily types are widely distributed across regions irrespective of national boundaries, attributes social differences to historical and environmental factors rather than heredity, and cautions against fears of admixture and simplistic conflation of race with nationality.