The Great Gatsby & The Great Replacement

There is a scene in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby where Tom Buchanan — the All-American aristocrat — regurgitates an early version of what has come to be known as The Great Replacement theory. This theory is based on the belief that global elites are conspiring to replace white Europeans with mass migrating — usually Muslim — populations from the Middle East and Africa. The term ‘The Great Replacement’ was first popularised by far-right French philosopher, Renaud Camus, in his 2011 book, Le Grand Remplacement. However, the concept is a lot older than this. In 1916, for instance, Madison Grant published The Passing of the Great Race — a pseudo-scientific rationalization for white supremacy, which Hitler referred to as his ‘bible’. This text, along with Lothrop Stoddard’s The Rising Tide of Color: The Threat Against White World-Supremacy (1920) (which Grant wrote an introduction for) are modern precursors to the Great Replacement theory. Buchanan, in a muddled reference to the latter, asks Nick Carraway if he’s ‘read ‘The Rise of the Coloured Empires’ by this man Goddard?’:

‘Civilization’s going to pieces,’ broke out Tom violently. ‘I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read ‘The Rise of the Coloured Empires’ by this man Goddard?’

‘Why, no,’ I answered, rather surprised by his tone.