The Reinvention of Humanity

Magnificent … In this brilliantly written and deftly organised book, Charles King tells the story of how the study of humankind [was revolutionised] in the first half of the 20th century – Kathryn Hughes * Guardian *Hugely informative and adhesively readable – John Carey * Sunday Times *Stunning … every syllable seems perfectly positioned for pitch, stress, euphony and evocative power; the brilliant vignettes of the anthropologists’ leisure moments … the vividness with which their private lives, sexual intrigues and secret thoughts are captured … elegant and entertaining * Literary Review *An intellectual adventure story of the best sort - elegantly written, thought-provoking and full of biographical riches – SARAH BAKEWELL, author of At the Existentialist CaféCharles King, author of this illuminating biographical history [has] a great gift for nicely balanced epigrammatic prose … as King writes with a typically fine flourish, Boas can be seen to have been “on the front line of the greatest moral battle of our time” and he, along with the talented women who learnt from him, won out in the end – Lucy Hughes-Hallett * New Statesman *Written with verve and authority, this exciting – even entrancing – story follows the first cultural anthropologists to far-flung field sites that suggested antidotes to the racism and xenophobia of society – DAVA SOBEL, author of LongitudeStunning. Wickedly perceptive, a scholarly masterpiece – DAVID OSHINSKY, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of PolioElegant and kaleidoscopic … this looks to be the perfect moment for King’s resolutely humane book * NEW YORK TIMES *Deeply intelligent and immensely readable – Alison Gopnik * Atlantic *The notion of cultural relativism was as unique in its way as was Einstein’s theory of relativity in the discipline of physics, a shattering of the European mind. This remarkable book explains why. Franz Boas’s intuitions and insights, distilled in theory and practice by generations of scholars, a lineage that includes Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and Zora Neale Hurston, all brilliantly portrayed in the book, continue to inform contemporary anthropology, allowing the discipline to stand today as the antidote to nativism and the poisonous rhetoric of political demagogues. The entire purpose of anthropology, wrote Ruth Benedict, is to make the world safe for human differences. Never has the voice of anthropology been more important, and the arrival of this astonishing book can only be described as a gift to us all – Wade Davis, author of Into the Silence

Charles King is Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University, Washington DC. His numerous books include the New York Times bestseller The Reinvention of Humanity (published in the US as Gods of the Upper Air), which was winner of The Francis Parkman Prize and shortlisted for the British Academy Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; Midnight at the Pera Palace- The Birth of Modern Istanbul; and Odessa- Genius and Death in a City of Dreams, which was winner of a National Jewish Book Award. His writing has appeared in the TLS, New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, The New Republic and other publications.

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