Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany by Andrew Zimmerman

Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany by Andrew Zimmerman

With the rise of imperialism, the centuries-old European tradition of humanist scholarship as the key to understanding the world was jeopardized. Nowhere was this more true than in nineteenth-century Germany. It was there, Andrew Zimmerman argues, that the battle lines of today's "culture wars" were first drawn when anthropology challenged humanism as a basis for human scientific knowledge. Drawing on sources ranging from scientific papers and government correspondence to photographs, pamphlets, and police reports of "freak shows," Zimmerman demonstrates how German imperialism opened the door to antihumanism. As Germans interacted more frequently with peoples and objects from far-flung cultures, they were forced to reevaluate not just those peoples, but also the construction of German identity itself. Anthropologists successfully argued that their discipline addressed these issues more productively—and more accessibly—than humanistic studies. Scholars of anthropology, European and intellectual history, museum studies, the history of science, popular culture, and colonial studies will welcome this book.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780226983424
ISBN 10	0226983420
Title	Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany
Author	Andrew Zimmerman
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	The University of Chicago Press
Year published	2001-12-01
Number of pages	372
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.