Franz Boas

Franz Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 22, 1942) was one of the pioneers of modern anthropology and is often called the "Father of American Anthropology". Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did post-doctoral work in geography.

Sources/Further Reading

Writings by Boas

• Boas n.d. "The relation of Darwin to anthropology," notes for a lecture; Boas papers (B/B61.5) American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.
• Boas, Franz 1911 The Mind of Primitive Man ISBN 0313240043
• Boas, Franz 1940 Race, Language, and Culture ISBN 0-226-06241-4
• Stocking, George W., Jr., ed. 1974 A Franz Boas Reader: The Shaping of American Anthropology, 1883-1911 ISBN 0-226-06243-0

Writings on Boas and Boasian Anthropology

• Bashkow, Ira 2004 "A Neo-Boasian Conception of Cultural Boundaries" in American Anthropologist 106(3): 443-458
• Bunzl, Matti 2004 "Boas, Foucault, and the 'Native Anthropologist,'" in American Anthropologist 106(3): 435-442
• Cole, Douglas 1999 Franz Boas: The Early Years, 1858-1906 ISBN 1-55054-746-1
• Kuper, Adam 1988 The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion ISBN 0-415-00903-0
• Kroeber, Alfred 1949 "An Authoritarian Panacea" in American Anthropologist 51(2) 318-320
• Lesser, Alexander 1981 "Franz Boas" in Sydel Silverman, ed. Totems and Teachers: Perspectives on the History of Anthropology ISBN 0-231-05087-9
• Lewis, Herbert 2001 "The Passion of Franz Boas" in American Anthropologist 103(2): 447-467
• Lewis, Herbert 2001 "Boas, Darwin, Science and Anthropology" in Current Anthropology 42(3): 381-406
• Stocking, George W., Jr. 1968 "Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology" ISBN 0-226-77494-5
• Stocking, George W., Jr., ed. 1996 Volksgeist as Method and Ethic: Essays on Boasian Ethnography and the German Anthropological Tradition ISBN 0-299-14554-9

Boas, Anthropology, and Jewish Identity

• Glick, Leonard B. 1982 "Types Distinct from Our Own: Franz Boas on Jewish Identity and Assimilation" in American Anthropologist 84(3) pp. 545-565.
• Frank, Gelya 1997 "Jews, Multiculturalism, and Boasian Anthropology" in American Anthropologist 99(4), pp. 731-745.
• Kevin MacDonald 1998 The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements -- chapter 2 provides a critique of Boas, by resurrecting the Nazi notion of "Jewish science".