Anthropology and Modern Life available in Hardcover
- ISBN-10:
- 0313243700
- ISBN-13:
- 9780313243707
- Pub. Date:
- 02/22/1984
- Publisher:
- Bloomsbury Academic
- ISBN-10:
- 0313243700
- ISBN-13:
- 9780313243707
- Pub. Date:
- 02/22/1984
- Publisher:
- Bloomsbury Academic
Hardcover
Buy New
$65.00Overview
From the book's very opening. Boas shatters the myth that anthropology is simply a collection of curious facts about exotic peoples and their customs and belief systems. He asserts that a clear understanding of the principles of anthropology illuminates the social processes of our own times and may show us what to do and what to avoid. Boas proceeds to discuss issues that have had resounding significance in our own time: the problem of defining race: the subjective view of racial types: heredity versus environment: alleged physiological and mental differences between races: the significance of intelligence tests: the importance of one's cultural experience: open versus closed societies: nationality and nationalism: the mixed descent of European nations: eugenics: social conditions versus heredity in the committing of crimes: intolerance; and the influence of race and sex on a successful education. While he outwardly acknowledges that his book runs contrary to popular prejudices. Boas was an optimist, and hoped that dissenters, in reading Anthropology and Modern Life, would come to reexamine their own viewpoints dispassionately and critically.
This new edition of Anthropology and Modern Life is enhanced by an introduction and afterword by Herbert S. Lewis, who details Franz Boas' life, influence, and ideals. This volume will be a welcome contribution to the libraries of anthropologists, sociologists, and those concerned with human rights.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780313243707 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Bloomsbury Academic |
Publication date: | 02/22/1984 |
Edition description: | Revised ed. |
Pages: | 256 |
Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.75(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Transaction Introduction | ix | |
Preface | 7 | |
I. | What is Anthropology? | 11 |
Anthropology treats of man as a member of a racial or social group | ||
Pure and applied anthropology | ||
II. | The Problem of Race | 18 |
Significance of the term "Race" | ||
Overlapping of racial types | ||
Subjective existence of types | ||
Racial heredity and family lines | ||
Inbred and heterogeneous types | ||
Attempts to determine constituent races of a population | ||
Selection | ||
Genetic differences between individuals of the same bodily form | ||
Environmental influences upon bodily form | ||
Summary | ||
Races considered from an evolutionary viewpoint | ||
Relation between the size of the brain and intelligence | ||
Man as a domesticated form | ||
Physiological and mental differences between races | ||
Difficulty of distinguishing between hereditary and environmental conditions | ||
Significance of intelligence tests | ||
Tests of American Negroes | ||
Relative importance of cultural experience and racial descent | ||
Racial descent disregarded by ethnologists | ||
III. | The Interrelation of Races | 63 |
Race consciousness | ||
Open and closed societies | ||
Race a type of closed society | ||
Intermingling of races | ||
Conditions under which race antipathies break down | ||
IV. | Nationalism | 81 |
Confusion between the terms "Race" and "Nationality" | ||
Racial segregation within a nation | ||
Mixed descent of European nations | ||
Language as basis of national groupings | ||
Nationality, political and cultural | ||
Culture and political organization as basis of nationality | ||
Fictitious groupings based on distant relation of speech | ||
History of nationalism | ||
Increase in size of political units | ||
Early development of tribal units | ||
The function of nationalism | ||
V. | Eugenics | 106 |
Effects of selection | ||
Effect of environment and heredity | ||
General degeneracy | ||
Selection for development of specific qualities | ||
Social effects of eugenic legislation | ||
Elimination of the unfit | ||
Dangers of eugenic procedure | ||
VI. | Criminology | 122 |
Criminals as a class | ||
Criminals as defectives | ||
Social conditions and crime | ||
Relative importance of hereditary and environmental factors | ||
VII. | Stability of Culture | 132 |
Acceleration of cultural development | ||
Periodicity of the rate of change | ||
Automatic habits | ||
Negative effect of automatism | ||
Intolerance | ||
Causes of conformity | ||
Relation between material inventions and automatic habits | ||
The relation between language and thought | ||
Effect of uniformity of culture | ||
The influence of individuals upon culture | ||
Actions are more stable than their interpretations | ||
Stability of patterns of thought | ||
VIII. | Education | 168 |
Phenomena of growth and development | ||
Influence of heredity | ||
Retardation and acceleration | ||
Comparison of sexes | ||
Application of generalized observations to the establishment of educational standards | ||
Racial characteristics | ||
Generalized standards are not applicable to individuals | ||
Cases in which standards are applicable | ||
Prediction of individual development | ||
Cultural effects of education | ||
Effect of education upon mental freedom | ||
Conflicts in educational aims | ||
Effect of education upon crises in the life of the individual | ||
The cultural outlook of classes | ||
Cultural outlook of educated class | ||
Cultural outlook of the masses | ||
IX. | Modern Life and Primitive Culture | 202 |
Valuation of different cultural aims | ||
Objective study must be based on different cultures | ||
Anthropology an historic science | ||
Primitive cultures as historic growths | ||
General social laws | ||
Prediction of development of culture impossible | ||
Progress in inventions and knowledge | ||
Effect of leisure | ||
Stability of moral ideas | ||
Progress in ethical behavior | ||
Self-perfection | ||
Progress in social organization | ||
Leadership | ||
Position of women | ||
Marriage | ||
Property | ||
Georgraphic determinism | ||
Economic determinism | ||
Is the direction of cultural development predetermined? | ||
Culture not superorganic | ||
Afterword | 247 | |
References | 325 |