Overview

Addressing, for the first time, the enigma of how Franz Boas came to be the central founder of anthropology and a driving force in the acceptance of science as part of societal life in North America, this exploration breaks through the linguistic and cultural barriers that have prevented scholars from grasping the importance of Boas’s personal background and academic activities as a German Jew. Müller-Wille argues that to fully appreciate Boas’s complete scientific and literary opus and deep emotional and intellectual attachment to the upbringing that shaped his life, it is crucial to become familiar with his publications in German on Inuit and the Arctic as related to environmental, geographical, and ethnological questions, which have remained largely unknown and neglected in North America. These writings represent his emerging scientific interpretations of Inuit culture and the Arctic, and provide insight into the crucial period of Inuit history dominated by European and North American colonial expansion into their homeland more than 130 years ago. With detailed documentation that will be of great use to academics, this book is also written in a lively prose that will prove accessible even to lay readers as they gain a deeper understanding of the eminent cultural anthropologist’s academic background and thinking as well as his personal and intellectual life path.

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9781771860017

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Reviews

"Ludger Müller-Wille has restored a profoundly important chapter of Boas’ life and allows Boas to speak again through his German-language publications."" —Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt, coauthor, Franz Boas and W. E. B. Du Bois at Atlanta University, 1906 and Ritual Medical Lore of Sephardic Women "". . . . this slim volume is an important codex of our times, especially for the dedicated social scientist. ... Boas, North America's seminal anthropologist, ... shape[d] a scientific system dedicated to the egalitarian analysis of human culture. That system emerges, here, through a wealth of mind-haunting ethnological data."" —Allen Bentley, Telegraph Journal ""What a fascinating and meticulous piece of work! [Müller-Wille has] brought so much together to enrich our understanding of Franz Boas, this brilliant and complicated man."" —Valeria Alia, PhD and Professor Emerita, Leeds Metropolitan University"

What a fascinating and meticulous piece of work! [Muller-Wille has] brought so much together to enrich our understanding of Franz Boas, this brilliant and complicated man. --Valeria Alia, PhD and Professor Emerita, Leeds Metropolitan University

Ludger Muller-Wille has restored a profoundly important chapter of Boas' life and allows Boas to speak again through his German-language publications. -Rosemary Levy Zumwalt, coauthor, Franz Boas and W. E. B. Du Bois at Atlanta University, 1906 and Ritual Medical Lore of Sephardic Women . . . . this slim volume is an important codex of our times, especially for the dedicated social scientist. ... Boas, North America's seminal anthropologist, ... shape[d] a scientific system dedicated to the egalitarian analysis of human culture. That system emerges, here, through a wealth of mind-haunting ethnological data. -Allen Bentley, Telegraph Journal What a fascinating and meticulous piece of work! [Muller-Wille has] brought so much together to enrich our understanding of Franz Boas, this brilliant and complicated man. -Valeria Alia, PhD and Professor Emerita, Leeds Metropolitan University

What a fascinating and meticulous piece of work! [Muller-Wille has] brought so much together to enrich our understanding of Franz Boas, this brilliant and complicated man. --Valeria Alia, PhD and Professor Emerita, Leeds Metropolitan University . . . . this slim volume is an important codex of our times, especially for the dedicated social scientist. ... Boas, North America's seminal anthropologist, ... shape[d] a scientific system dedicated to the egalitarian analysis of human culture. That system emerges, here, through a wealth of mind-haunting ethnological data. --Allen Bentley, Telegraph Journal Ludger Muller-Wille has restored a profoundly important chapter of Boas' life and allows Boas to speak again through his German-language publications. --Rosemary Levy Zumwalt, coauthor, Franz Boas and W. E. B. Du Bois at Atlanta University, 1906 and Ritual Medical Lore of Sephardic Women

Author Information

Ludger Müller-Wille is a retired professor of geography and northern studies at McGill University and the author of Franz Boas with the Inuit of Baffin Island, 1883–1884: Journals and Letters and Inuit and Whalers on Baffin Island through German Eyes. He has studied ethnicity and human-environmental relations in the arctic and subarctic among the Sámi and Finns, Inuit, Dene, and Naskapi. He lives in Saint-Lambert, Quebec.

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