(Download) "Historiographical Concerns in the History of Anthropology." by The Western Journal of Black Studies " Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Historiographical Concerns in the History of Anthropology.
- Author : The Western Journal of Black Studies
- Release Date : January 22, 2004
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 185 KB
Description
Since the late 1960s, George W. Stocking Jr., professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Chicago, has--with only occasional lapses--pursued a strictly internalist methodological approach to the historical investigation of the European and European American behavioral sciences (Lewis, 1992, pp. 110-113). Stocking's books, edited volumes, and articles have withstood both the initial criticisms and the tests of time. Indeed, the longevity and durability of his contributions are testaments to the acuity of his keen mind (Stocking 1968, 1992, 1993, 2001). Typical of Stocking's influence on the methodological orientation of scholars of the history of science is Professor Nancy L. Stepan's defense of the his internalist position in her book Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain, 1800-1960 (1982). At that time, Stepan made the case--in an even stronger and more precise fashion than Stocking himself--when she wrote: "Social and political factors.., did not determine directly the specific form scientific arguments took about race." Furthermore, scientific arguments, Stepan added, "were instead derived from procedures and the content of the sciences themselves" (p. xv). Unwittingly, however--as the great historian of race George M. Frederickson pointed out to me in 1983, while I was an unpaid associate in the history department at Northwestern UniversityStepan's book suggests that British scientists and social scientists were unable or unwilling to pursue a more enlightened path on the issue of race at the turn of the twentieth century, primarily because social structural changes in Great Britain were not sufficiently wrenching to compel them to reassess their positions on the issues of race and race relations.