The eugenics movement may have reached its horrific height in the concentration camps of Poland and Germany; but even now, few know how it gained steam, slowly and quietly here in the United States.

Relatively few know that Hitler, while in prison writing "Mein Kampf," idolized American eugenicists, or that American state governments once sterilized citizens deemed by some to be "feebleminded."

With his comprehensive new book, "War Against the Weak," Edwin Black attempts to rectify that situation, and does a convincing, if sometimes drawn-out job of it. He begins the story in the 1930s in a hilly southwestern part of Virginia, a place where the hill folk live in utter poverty and are regarded by polite society with contempt, or as Black puts it, as "white trash."

The powerful of Montgomery County, Va., did not stop at contempt, though. Instead, Black writes, a sheriff raided the homes of those deemed unfit, and in some cases, brought them to Western State Hospital in Staunton, Va.

Black goes on to describe what happened there in candid, stark terms.

"The county authorities were certain that the hill folk swept up in their raids were indeed mentally, and genetically, defective. As such they wouldn't be permitted to breed more of their kind. How? These simple mountain people were systematically sterilized under a Virginia law compelling such operations for those ruled unfit."

From Virginia, the narrative darts back and forth in time, to Brooklyn at the turn of the 19th century and eventually to Hitler, the Holocaust, and on to the death throes of the eugenics movement. With each twist, Black leaves the reader with ample evidence, culled from approximately 50,000 documents, and researched by 50 assistants in four countries, that horrible wrongs, in fact, occurred on American soil and might have played some role in casting events that led to the horrors of Nazi Germany.

Such a general argument never ceases to compel. What does, however, is the unyielding attention to detail, which to the casual reader, the non-academic, may come across as overbearing or just plain boring.

In reading "War Against the Weak," patience is indeed a virtue. For while certain slow passages might, well, slow a reader down, in most cases they lead to telling little nuggets which cast this epic story in much brighter, clearer light.

To know that one of the movement's first guiding lights had an epileptic (read: feebleminded) son or to know that another leader is now thought to have been an epileptic himself allows for a much deeper understanding when trying to understand the origins of eugenics.

It may not always be easy reading, but certainly it is worthwhile, from beginning to end.

Michael Gartland is a reporter who covers East Cooper for The Post and Courier.