How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century
by Charles King
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Published Aug 2019
448 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
A dazzling group portrait of Franz Boas, the founder of cultural anthropology, and his circle of women scientists, who upended American notions of race, gender, and sexuality in the 1920s and 1930s - a sweeping chronicle of how our society began to question the basic ways we understand other cultures and ourselves.
At the end of the 19th century, everyone knew that people were defined by their race and sex and were fated by birth and biology to be more or less intelligent, able, nurturing, or warlike. But one rogue researcher looked at the data and decided everyone was wrong. Franz Boas was the very image of a mad scientist: a wild-haired immigrant with a thick German accent. By the 1920s he was also the foundational thinker and public face of a new school of thought at Columbia University called cultural anthropology. He proposed that cultures did not exist on a continuum from primitive to advanced. Instead, every society solves the same basic problems--from child-rearing to how to live well--with its own set of rules, beliefs, and taboos.
Boas's students were some of the century's intellectual stars: Margaret Mead, the outspoken field researcher whose Coming of Age in Samoa is one of the most widely read works of social science of all time; Ruth Benedict, the great love of Mead's life, whose research shaped post-Second World War Japan; Ella Deloria, the Dakota Sioux activist who preserved the traditions of Native Americans of the Great Plains; and Zora Neale Hurston, whose studies under Boas fed directly into her now-classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Together, they mapped vanishing civilizations from the Arctic to the South Pacific and overturned the relationship between biology and behavior. Their work reshaped how we think of women and men, normalcy and deviance, and re-created our place in a world of many cultures and value systems.
Gods of the Upper Air is a page-turning narrative of radical ideas and adventurous lives, a history rich in scandal, romance, and rivalry, and a genesis story of the fluid conceptions of identity that define our present moment.
"Rich in ideas, the book also abounds in absorbing accounts of friendships, animosities, and rivalries among these early anthropologists. This superb narrative of debunking scientists provides timely reading for our 'great-again' era." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"King's prose is energetic, enlivened with delicious quotations, juicy personal details, and witty turns of phrase ('Fieldwork was the destroyer of worlds. Marriages failed. Youthful ambitions came to look quaint'). This complex, delightful book will get readers thinking and keep them turning the pages." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"An intellectual adventure story of the best sort—elegantly written, thought-provoking, and full of biographical riches." - Sarah Bakewell, author of How to Live and At the Existentialist Cafe
"Deeply thought-provoking and brilliantly written, Gods of the Upper Air is a walk in the shoes of giants. Charles King takes you on an unforgettable journey as daring anthropologists unravel the profound mysteries of culture and mankind, and discover that they, too, were only human." - David Hoffman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Dead Hand and The Billion Dollar Spy
"This exciting—even entrancing—story traces the birth of a new science in the early twentieth century, championed by a scrappy genius who trained a cadre of bold women for the work. Charles King writes with verve and authority as he follows the nation's first cultural anthropologists to far-flung field sites that suggested antidotes to the racism and xenophobia of American society." - Dava Sobel, author of The Glass Universe and Longitude
This information about Gods of the Upper Air was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Charles King is the author of seven books, including Midnight at the Pera Palace and Odessa, winner of a National Jewish Book Award. His essays and articles have appeared in the the New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and The New Republic. He is a professor of international affairs and government at Georgetown University.
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