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Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
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Johann Friedrich Blumenbach book
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
DOI link for Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach book
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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
part II|96 pages
Defining human races
chapter 3|26 pages
Buffon, Blumenbach, Herder, Lichtenberg, and the origins of modern anthropology
chapter 4|27 pages
Climate change and creolization in French natural history, 1750–1795
chapter 6|17 pages
Blumenbach’s theory of human races and the natural unity of humankind
part III|127 pages
Racism, anti-racism, and Eurocentricity