Full Description
Victorian anthropology has been derided as an "armchair practice," distinct from the scientific discipline of the twentieth century. But the observational practices that characterized the study of human diversity developed from the established sciences of natural history, geography and medicine. Sera-Shriar argues that anthropology at this time went through a process of innovation which built on scientifically grounded observational study. Far from being an evolutionary dead end, nineteenth-century anthropology laid the foundations for the field-based science of anthropology today.
Contents
Introduction 1 Founding the Sciences of ManPractices of James Cowles Prichard and William Lawrence 2 Ethnology in Transit: Informants, Questionnaires and the Formation of the Ethnological Society of London 3 Ethnology at Home: Robert Gordon Latham, Robert Knox and Competing Observational Practices 4 The Battle for Mankind: James Hunt, Thomas Huxley and the Emergence of British Anthropology 5 Synthesizing the Discipline: Charles Darwin, Edward Burnett Tylor and Developmental Anthropology in the Early 1870s Conclusion Notes Works Cited Index
