Until the 1890s Boas used the term as his fellow anthropolog

Until the 1890s Boas used the term as his fellow anthropologists did: as another word for civilization or “high culture.” Franz Boas’s exposition of the concept of culture as an alternative to race in accounting for differences among human groups was a genuine seminal contribution. The idea not only conquered his own field of anthropolgy but spread as well to other social science disciplines. The diffusion was remarkably rapid. Again and again in the early years of the new century American social scientists outside of anthropology testified to the influence of his writings on their conception of human nature and the place of biology or race within it.

— Carl Degler In Search of Human Nature: The Decline and Revival of Darwinism in American Social Thought 2026-07-20

Filed under

Culture Over Biology Diffusion of Ideas Across Disciplines Individual Shaping a Field Science Against Prejudice Theories of Human Nature

Topics

Anthropology Carl Degler Franz Boas

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