The Races of Man: An Outline of Anthropology and Ethnography

Deniker, Joseph, 1852-1918Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.7

Word count: 1.2M words
Chapters: 118

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Races of Man: An Outline of Anthropology and Ethnography by Joseph DenikerAuthor: Deniker, Joseph, 1852-1918,Language: English, Class: GN: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation: Anthropology, Release Date: Sep 12, 2014

Editor's review

This book is an outline by the French anthropologist Joseph Deniker on human physical types and ethnography, prepared by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain ebook. Working within the anthropological framework of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it attempts a comprehensive description of the physical characteristics, geographical distribution and cultural customs of the world's peoples, reflecting the discipline's contemporary pursuit of systematic classification and comparative study. For today's readers its value lies chiefly in the history of the discipline and of ideas: one can see how early anthropology constructed the concept of "race", how it organized field materials, and how it placed physical measurements alongside cultural description. The classifications and formulations in the book carry clear period limitations and should not be used as current anthropological conclusions. It is best approached through critical reading, set against contemporary anthropological reflections on the concept of race; this allows both an understanding of where the discipline came from and a clear view of the historical conditions of knowledge production. The text is in English and outline-like in structure, suited to sectional study rather than continuous reading.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who study the history of anthropology, intellectual history and the history of science and need to understand early disciplinary frameworks
Researchers interested in the tradition of ethnographic writing and early methods of physical anthropology
Advanced students with critical reading skills who are willing to understand old texts in their historical context
Teaching staff who collect public-domain academic ebooks for course-material comparison

Not a good fit for

Introductory readers expecting a contemporary general anthropology text or the latest ethnographic research
Readers prone to taking the racial classifications of an earlier era as current scientific conclusions
Casual readers seeking light popular-science reading who lack patience for outline-style academic texts

Reading tips

Begin with the table of contents and introductory chapters to grasp the author's classificatory framework and aims, then move on to descriptions of specific peoples.
Keep a pen or a notes document at hand to mark period-bound formulations and compare them with contemporary anthropological reflections.
Treat the book as material for disciplinary history and read it in sections alongside a history-of-anthropology course or introductory literature, rather than reading it in isolation straight through.
When reaching the physical classification sections, focus on the author's methods and assumptions rather than memorizing specific category names.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Are the racial classifications in this book still usable today?

They cannot be used directly. The book relies on the physical anthropology framework of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and its "race" classifications and measurement methods have been widely reconsidered and revised by contemporary anthropology. Anthropology today emphasizes continuous variation within populations and mixture through migration, and opposes dividing people into fixed hierarchies. The book should be read as a document in the history of the discipline, not as current scientific conclusion.

Can someone without a background in anthropology read this book?

Yes, but with support. The book is written in outline form and involves physical measurements, geographical distribution and ethnographic terminology, so readers with no background at all can easily get lost. It is advisable to first read an introductory article on the history of anthropology or on critiques of the concept of race to understand the period background and basic debates, then enter the original text section by section; this works much better.

How does this book differ from modern ethnography?

Modern ethnography is usually based on long-term fieldwork and emphasizes interaction between researcher and local people, reflexive writing and specific contexts. This book leans toward broad outlines and comparative classification, attempting to cover the world's peoples in limited space, and both its sources and its mode of writing have the compilatory character of early anthropology. The two differ markedly in method, ethics and authorial stance; reading them side by side makes the discipline's changes clear.

Does the Gutenberg edition have modern annotations or an introduction?

The Project Gutenberg edition mainly provides the electronic text of the public-domain original and usually does not include introductions, annotations or critical appendices by modern scholars. Readers who need to understand the book's classificatory framework and period background should supplement it with secondary literature on the history of anthropology and of science, or consult contemporary anthropological discussion of the concept of race.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Deniker, Joseph, 1852-1918 Author · French · 1852–1918

Joseph Deniker (1852–1918) was a French anthropologist. He devoted sustained attention to questions of human physical variation and the division of peoples, and on this basis proposed his own system of racial classification, which exercised a certain influence in the early development of the discipline. His representative work is The Races of Man: An Outline of Anthropology and Ethnography, a broadly conceived survey of anthropology and ethnography written with clarity and a well-defined framework, reflecting his emphasis on classification and comparison; it is often regarded as a useful reference for understanding the state of anthropology and ethnography in his time. Because publicly available material on the details of his life is limited, this introduction rests mainly on his works and his classificatory theory.