Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King

It was once common for anthropologists to grade societies based on their evolution. They would evolve from more primitive to more advanced states. Any societies that differed from the western standard were thought to be primitive. This book looks at the anthropology of the anthropologists as they adopted cultural relativism. Different cultures and peoples do things differently. This is not necessarily good or bad, just different. We may be shocked at some practices of others, just as they would abhor some of ours. Scientists should seek to understand. This puts being "progressive" or "conservative" on it's head. We are evolving just as others are evolving. Some of our "progressive" behaviors have likely been held by others with conservative views. This book focuses on the anthropologists and their struggles to break from the mainstream to adopt a relativistic view of other cultures.