This inaugural volume of The Franz Boas Papers Documentary Edition series presents current scholarship from the various academic disciplines that were shaped and continue to be influenced by Franz Boas (1858 1942). Few of Boas s intellectual progeny span the range of his disciplinary and public enga[...]

Addressing, for the first time, the enigma of how Franz Boas came to be the central founder of anthropology and a driving force in the acceptance of science as part of societal life in North America, this exploration breaks through the linguistic and cultural barriers that have prevented scholars fr[...]