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      Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
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      Book

      Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

      DOI link for Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

      Johann Friedrich Blumenbach book

      Race and Natural History, 1750–1850

      Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

      DOI link for Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

      Johann Friedrich Blumenbach book

      Race and Natural History, 1750–1850
      Edited ByNicolaas Rupke, Gerhard Lauer
      Edition 1st Edition
      First Published 2018
      eBook Published 12 July 2018
      Pub. Location London
      Imprint Routledge
      DOI https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315184777
      Pages 280
      eBook ISBN 9781315184777
      Subjects Bioscience, Humanities
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      Rupke, N., & Lauer, G. (Eds.). (2018). Johann Friedrich Blumenbach: Race and Natural History, 1750–1850 (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315184777

      ABSTRACT

      The major significance of the German naturalist-physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840) as a topic of historical study is the fact that he was one of the first anthropologists to investigate humankind as part of natural history. Moreover, Blumenbach was, and continues to be, a central figure in debates about race and racism.

      How exactly did Blumenbach define race and races? What were his scientific criteria? And which cultural values did he bring to bear on his scheme? Little historical work has been done on Blumenbach’s fundamental, influential race work. From his own time till today, several different pronouncements have been made by either followers or opponents, some accusing Blumenbach of being the fountainhead of scientific racism. By contrast, across early nineteenth-century Europe, not least in France, Blumenbach was lionized as an anti-racist whose work supported the unity of humankind and the abolition of slavery.

      This collection of essays considers how, with Blumenbach and those around him, the study of natural history and, by extension, that of science came to dominate the Western discourse of race.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      part I|24 pages

      Blumenbach studies

      chapter 1|13 pages

      Introduction

      A brief history of Blumenbach representation
      ByNicolaas Rupke, Gerhard Lauer

      chapter 2|9 pages

      Johann Friedrich Blumenbach – Online

      ByGerhard Lauer, Heiko Weber

      part II|96 pages

      Defining human races

      chapter 3|26 pages

      Buffon, Blumenbach, Herder, Lichtenberg, and the origins of modern anthropology

      ByCarl Niekerk

      chapter 4|27 pages

      Climate change and creolization in French natural history, 1750–1795

      ByE. C. Spary

      chapter 5|16 pages

      Blumenbach’s collection of human skulls

      ByWolfgang Böker

      chapter 6|17 pages

      Blumenbach’s theory of human races and the natural unity of humankind

      ByThomas Junker

      chapter 7|8 pages

      A defense of human rights

      Blumenbach on albinism
      ByRenato G. Mazzolini

      part III|127 pages

      Racism, anti-racism, and Eurocentricity

      chapter 8|19 pages

      Blumenbach’s race science in the light of Christian supersessionism

      ByTerence Keel

      chapter 9|35 pages

      The beautiful skulls of Schiller and the Georgian girl

      Quantitative and aesthetic scaling of the races, 1770–1850
      ByRobert J. Richards

      chapter 10|20 pages

      Ethnographic exploration in the Blumenbachian tradition

      ByPeter Hanns Reill

      chapter 11|36 pages

      The rise of paleontology and the historicization of nature

      Blumenbach and Deluc
      ByJohn H. Zammito

      chapter 12|15 pages

      The origins of scientific racism and Huxley’s rule

      ByNicolaas Rupke
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