Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Born in Germany in 1858, Franz Boas was the dominant figure in *American anthropology from the late 1890s through the 1920s. His major ethnographic research among the Inuit and *Native Americans of the Northwest Coast was complemented by his work in *language and linguistics and *biological anthropology, his influence as teacher, and his professional and social activism (Goldschmidt 1959; Hyatt 1990; Kroeber et al. 1943; Stocking 1974).
Boas’s theoretical contributions are under-appreciated in contemporary anthropology, in part because so much of his legacy is taken for granted. Still, American and world anthropology remain firmly attached to frameworks that Boas established, and many of the ideas he wrestled with continue to haunt the discipline (Wolf 1994), if often in non-Boasian incarnations.
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