Bones,
Bodies, Behavior
Essays in Behavioral
Anthropology
Edited by George W. Stocking, Jr.
History of Anthropology (VOLUME FIVE)
Richard Handler, Series Editor
“Bones, Bodies, Behavior is wonderful—a valuable and exciting contribution to the
scientific literature on physical anthropology.”
—Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, Division of Biological
Sciences, Cornell University
History of Anthropology is a series of annual volumes, inaugurated in
1983, each broadly unified around a theme of major importance
to both the history and the present practice of anthropological
inquiry. Bones, Bodies, Behavior, the fifth in the
series, treats a number of issues relating to the history of
biological or physical anthropology: the application of the “race”
idea to humankind, the comparison of animals’ minds to those
of humans, the evolution of humans from primate forms, and the
relation of science to racial ideology.
Following an introductory overview of biological anthropology
in Western tradition, the seven essays focus on a series of particular
historical episodes from 1830 to 1980: the emergence of the race
idea in restoration France, the comparative psychological thought
of the American ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan, the archeological
background of the forgery of the remains “discovered”
at Piltdown in 1912, their impact on paleoanthropology in the
interwar period, the background and development of physical anthropology
in Nazi Germany, and the attempts of Franx Boas and others to
organize a consensus against racialism among British and American
scientists in the late 1930s. The volume concludes with a provocative
essay on physical anthropology and primate studies in the United
States in the years since such a consensus was established by
the UNESCO “Statements on Race” of 1950 and 1951.
Bringing together the contributions of a physical anthropologist
(Frank Spencer), a historical sociologist (Michael Hammond),
and a number of historians of science (Elazar Barkan, Claude
Blanckaert, Donna Haraway, Robert Proctor, and Marc Swetlitz),
this volume will appeal to a wide range of students, scholars,
and general readers interested in the place of biological assumptions
in the modern anthropological tradition, in the biological bases
of human behavior, in racial ideologies, and in the development
of the modern human sciences.
 George W. Stocking, Jr. (1928–2013) was the Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor
Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology and the Committee
on the Conceptual Foundations of Science at the University of
Chicago. He was the author of many books, including Victorian
Anthropology, After Tylor: British Social
Anthropology, 1888–1951, and The
Ethnographer’s Magic, and was the founder and long-time
editor of the History of Anthropology series published
by the University of Wisconsin Press. He was awarded the
Huxley Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Franz
Boas Award for Exemplary Service by the American Anthropological
Association. His most recent book with the University of Wisconsin
Press is Glimpses into My Own Black Box:
An Exercise in Self-Deconstruction.
Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.)
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August 1990
LC: 87-40377
GN
272 pp. 6 x 9, illus.
“This very useful fifth volume of the series . . . expands
the focus of this project to include biological anthropology.
. . . What is clear in many of these essays is the ethnocentrism
of the early monogenists who, believing in the unity of Homo
sapiens, saw the potential for all humans to make the cultural
transformations needed to perfect their ‘human nature’ (that
is, to become just like their observers). . . . A volume that
clearly belongs in every university library.”
—Marshall Joseph
Becker, American Journal of Physical Anthropology
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