Christoph Meiners

Christoph Meiners (1747–1810) taught philosophy in Göttingen from 1772 and was regarded as a polymath.

His History of Mankind was among the works from which educated Germany formed its picture of non-European peoples. It also stands as evidence of how deeply race theory had already penetrated scholarship before 1800 — Meiners divided humankind into tribes of differing worth.