In this Book

summary
The history of anthropology has been written from multiple viewpoints, often from perspectives of gender, nationality, theory, or politics. Before Boas delves deeper into issues concerning anthropology’s academic origins to present a groundbreaking study that reveals how ethnography and ethnology originated during the eighteenth rather than the nineteenth century, developing parallel to anthropology, or the “natural history of man.”

Han F. Vermeulen explores primary and secondary sources from Russia, Germany, Austria, the United States, the Netherlands, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, France, and Great Britain in tracing how “ethnography” originated as field research by German-speaking historians and naturalists in Siberia (Russia) during the 1730s and 1740s, was generalized as “ethnology” by scholars in Göttingen (Germany) and Vienna (Austria) during the 1770s and 1780s, and was subsequently adopted by researchers in other countries.

Before Boas argues that anthropology and ethnology were separate sciences during the Age of Reason, studying racial and ethnic diversity, respectively. Ethnography and ethnology focused not on “other” cultures but on all peoples of all eras. Following G. W. Leibniz, researchers in these fields categorized peoples primarily according to their languages. Franz Boas professionalized the holistic study of anthropology from the 1880s into the twentieth century.


 

Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Title Page, Copyright, Dedicaiton, Epigraphs
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. List of Illustrations
  2. pp. xi-xii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Preface
  2. pp. xiii-xvi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. xvii-xx
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Series Editors’ Introduction
  2. pp. xxi-xxvi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 1. History and Theory of Anthropology and Ethnology: Introduction
  2. pp. 1-38
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 2. Theory and Practice: G. W. Leibniz and the Advancement of Science in Russia
  2. pp. 39-86
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 3. Enlightenment and Pietism: D. G. Messerschmidt and the Early Exploration of Siberia
  2. pp. 87-130
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 4. Ethnography and Empire: G. F. Müller and the Description of Siberian Peoples
  2. pp. 131-218
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 5. Anthropology and the Orient: C. Niebuhr and the Danish-German Arabia Expedition
  2. pp. 219-268
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 6. From the Field to the Study: A. L. Schlözerand the Invention of Ethnology
  2. pp. 269-356
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 7. Anthropology in the German Enlightenment: Plural Approaches to Human Diversity
  2. pp. 357-394
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 8. Epilogue: Reception of the German Ethnographic Tradition
  2. pp. 395-436
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Conclusion
  2. pp. 437-458
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Notes
  2. pp. 459-514
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. References Cited
  2. pp. 515-688
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 689-720
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.