Man, Past and Present

Keane, A. H. (Augustus Henry), 1833-1912Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 1.5M words
Chapters: 148

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.Man, Past and Present by A. H. KeaneAuthor: Keane, A. H. (Augustus Henry), 1833-1912,Language: English, Class: GN: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation: Anthropology, Release Date: Mar 26, 2011

Editor's review

Man, Past and Present is an anthropological work by A. H. Keane, reissued by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain ebook. It belongs to the tradition of early general anthropology, attempting to describe the past and present condition of "man" through physical type, geography, and ethnic distribution, and reflecting the knowledge framework and narrative style of anthropology from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Its value lies not in offering the latest conclusions of today's scholarship, but in serving as a document in intellectual history: readers can observe how people of that era classified human groups, organized materials, and understood "progress" and difference. It should be read with a historical awareness, placing its categories and judgments back into their period context, while comparing them with modern anthropological reflection to distinguish which are limitations of the age and which observations still have reference value. For readers interested in the history of science, the history of anthropology, and colonial-era knowledge production, this is a text that invites critical reading.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying the history of anthropology and the late-nineteenth-century knowledge framework
Enthusiasts of the history of science concerned with colonial-era discourses of ethnic classification
University students needing early anthropological source texts for comparative analysis
Social science readers accustomed to reading old documents with a critical eye

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking authoritative conclusions and the latest research in contemporary anthropology
Those easily offended by old-style ethnic classification language and unwilling to consider its context
Beginners looking for an introductory, clearly structured textbook

Reading tips

Read the table of contents and conclusion first to grasp the book's classificatory framework, then move into specific chapters.
Mark judgments reflecting period bias as you read and compare them with today's scholarly views.
Read alongside an introduction to the history of anthropology to avoid mistaking old claims for current consensus.
Read selectively by region or ethnic theme; there is no need to give equal attention to every part from beginning to end.

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

Do the views in this book still hold today?

They should not be taken directly as current conclusions. The book was written during an early phase of anthropology, and its classifications of human groups and judgments about evolution bear clear limitations of their time. Its value for today's readers lies mainly in serving as a reference for intellectual and academic history, and it requires comparison and critical analysis against modern anthropological findings.

What background knowledge is needed before reading?

A basic familiarity with world geography and modern history will make the reading smoother. If one first understands the general outline of anthropology's early disciplinary development, it becomes easier to judge which views were common at the time and which were the author's personal positions.

What should be noted when reading the electronic edition?

This is a public-domain electronic text released by Project Gutenberg, laid out mainly as plain text, so the experience of figures and the index may be inferior to that of a paper book. It is advisable to use a reader that supports jumping to the table of contents and to take chapter notes for later reference.

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About the author

Keane, A. H. (Augustus Henry), 1833-1912 Author · British · 1833–1912

A. H. Keane (Augustus Henry Keane, 1833–1912) was a British geographer and anthropologist. Public information about him is limited, and many details of his life are difficult to verify; his surviving works nonetheless show a lasting interest in the distribution of human groups, linguistic differences, and their relationship to geographical environment. His representative work, Man, Past and Present, deals with ethnology, linguistics, and geography, attempting to survey the characteristics and changes of different peoples from a comparative perspective. His writing reflects the broad and clearly organized style of British scholarship in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, emphasizing the ordering of materials and regional description; it thus circulated widely in related fields and had a certain influence on later ethnographic and geographical writing.