Considering the anthropological ideas of Britain between 1885 and 1945, this book explores the relationship between social scientific ideas and behavior. Professor Kuklick shows how the descriptions British anthropologists produced about the peoples of exotic cultures can be translated into commentaries on their own society. Read as such, the anthropology of the period covered by the book represents an appeal for a society that rewards individuals on the basis of talent and achievement, not inherited status; a brief for the welfare state, which is obliged to care for those whom circumstances have prevented from taking care of themselves; and a plea for tolerance of cultural diversity, based on observation of a range of ways of life that satisfy human needs and desires. The book also shows how anthropological insight informed consideration of such specific problems as the rights of women, the Irish, and all colonized peoples.
Industry Reviews
"The book will be of immense interest to scholars and their graduate students in many fields of social and natural science, specifically anthropologists and historians of science, of colonial and imperial processes, and of professionalization, as well as intellectual and cultural historians and others concerned with the social and historical as well as the intellectual processes that have contextualized and shaped the persuit of knowledge." Journal of Modern History "...there are important lessons to be learned from Kuklick's review of our more policy-focused past." Journal of Social History "Kuklick contributes a refreshingly different perspective to the ongoing discussion of the relationship of anthropology to colonialism in Africa...she elaborates a provocative and convincing thesis...raises crucial issues about the relationship of ideas to their institutionalization." African Studies Review "Kuklick's examination of the relationship between historical context and British anthropological research and ideas from the late nineteenth to the midtwentieth centuries convincingly shows that ethnographers typically plied their craft in the service of the British state." Contemporary Sociology "Kuklick's examination of the relationship between historical context and British anthropological research and ideas from the late nineteenth to the midtwentieth centuries convincingly shows that ethnographers typically plied their craft in the service of the British state." Contemporary Sociology "In The Savage Within, Henrika Kuklick takes on the interesting but doubly daunting task of providing a social history of British anthropologists in the recent past of 1885-1945." Canadian Journal of History "For programmatic crises de coeur and jargonized intuitions, Kuklick has substituted a methodologically aware, finely tuned study of historical evidence. This work deserves a smooth passage into postgraduate reading lists wherever they mention Kuhn and the strange ways of 'science.'" Gerhard Baumann, Journal of Anthropological Research "...impressive primary research...She has provided us with a compelling framework for the study of the professionalization of anthropology..." Michael Adas, Isis "For programmatic crises de coeur and jargonized intuitions, Kuklick has substituted a methodologically aware, finely tuned study of historical evidence. This work deserves a smooth passage into postgraduate reading lists wherever they mention Kuhn and the strange ways of 'science.'" Gerhard Baumann, Journal of Anthropological Research
