The Boasian Text Tradition and the History of Anthropology

Abstract

The North American anthropological tradition, as a whole, contrasts sharply with the anthropologies which grew up elsewhere in the Western world, and forms a distinct part of contemporary anthropology on an international scale, a part which is accessible to us through disciplinary history. In this article I first argue for an historical approach as integral to mature disciplinary theory, and will then examine a specific moment in the history of North American anthropology as a microcosm of the differences between the British and North American traditions.