In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

humanities 439 Boas's cultural politics and some of his seminal intellectual contributions (for example, his thoughts on racial determination, his departure from scientific positivism, and his efforts to develop a sound ethnographic methodology). In spite of the fact, however, that Cole's second instalment will not be forthcoming, this is a valuable and intriguing read. The details of Boas's life in and of themselves are fascinating, and Cole's work effectively makes Boas a much more `human' figure than he is typically portrayed as in other biographies or analyses. Rather than simply being a man who moved from one great intellectual idea to the next in the context of early twentiethcentury America, Cole's Boas is a man who profoundly struggled to find recognition (and a job) within a world of debt, family responsibilities, capricious patrons, and intellectual cliques. But perhaps more usefully, Cole is not only able to pull his readers into Boas's complex and sometimes mundane life B falling in love, constant salary negotiations, sick children, and obstinate employers B but also to think critically about the world which actually generated and shaped ethnology. Boas certainly had his fair share of academic estrangements and betrayals, and was clearly victimized by a unique kind of museum factionalism. Yet he also became a main progenitor of these kind of divisive ethnological politics. Against this backdrop, then, we see Boas's work, his ethnographic research and writings, in the context of a `real life' that, although in some ways `privileged,' was certainly not easy. And the political intrigues, back-stabbings, and betrayals of Boas's world read with a provocatively familiar resonance for those pursuing careers in the context of contemporary academic politics. This volume, however, should not be approached as an introduction to Franz Boas B those who will enjoy this volume the most will likely be anthropologists and cultural historians who know Boas's work and have a developed sense of his intellectual impact on ethnography. Readers with this kind of background will greatly appreciate Cole's efforts to explore Boas's intellectual contributions as a complex concatenation of his own sheer indefatigability and stubbornness, the dedication of a supportive family, and, last but not least, the flashing but essential patronage of an elite but capricious group of men who controlled the early twentiethcentury production and representation of `culture.' The only real disappointment of this intriguing book is that is sets readers up so nicely for the next volume B a `to-be-continued' episode that perhaps another cultural historian will be inspired by Cole's work to write. (HILLARY CUNNINGHAM) Regna Darnell. And Along Came Boas: Continuity and Revolution in Americanist Anthropology 440 letters in canada 1999 John Benjamins 1998. xviii, 338. US $89.00 The classification of Amerindian languages is a thread of inquiry and debate that ties together the Americanist tradition in anthropology. The first classification was published by John Wesley Powell and his colleagues at the American Bureau of Ethnology (part of the Smithsonian Institution) in 1891; Edward Sapir, while he was employed at the Geological Survey in Ottawa, published the second in 1921; and Language in the Americas by Joseph Greenberg (1987) is the most recent. The Americanist tradition, Regna Darnell argues, rests on the study of American languages and ethnology, and is not only the historical predecessor but the implicit underpinning of the contemporary `mentalist, reflexive, symbolic anthropology ' of Geertz, Sahlins, and Ortner, for example. Her book is the story of how Boas moved the centre of American anthropology from the Bureau to the universities and the intellectual transformations he and his students initiated as they took up the research concerns of the Bureau and made them their own. By examining the research, institutional politics, and scholarly relationships among anthropologists, mainly in the United States, between 1879 and the 1920s, Darnell shows how the Americanist tradition moved from the evolutionary perspective of Lewis Henry Morgan (Ancient Society 1877) to an analytical approach to languages and cultures emphasizing their grammar and specific histories. The continuity of the Americanist tradition is its focus on Amerindian languages. The break between the Powell approach and that of Boas was a conjunction of failing ideas...

pdf

Share