Charles King ’s lively, ambitious book makes a very large claim: that the eminent anthropologist Franz Boas (1858-1942) inspired an “intellectual revolution” in the first half of the 20th century. The Boasians launched a scientific attack on “chauvinism and bigotry,” Mr. King writes, which brought about “one of the great shifts of opinion in the history of science.” It is thanks to them that racists may now feel ashamed of themselves, that no career is closed to women, and that gay individuals kiss each other goodbye on railway platforms. A stirring tale. But is it history or myth?
A professor of international affairs at Georgetown University, Mr. King reminds us that, as late as the 1930s, many educated and influential Americans and Europeans took it for granted that biology was destiny. History was a record of racial conflict. Public policy should be based on eugenics. But the author tells us that Boas demolished these old doctrines. He proved that race does not determine intelligence, talent, personality or morality. Nor are men and women programmed by nature to fulfill predestined mommy and daddy roles. It is our particular culture that make us what we are.
