Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany [Paperback]

Andrew Zimmerman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226983420 | ISBN-13: 978-0226983424 | Publication Date: November 2001 | Edition: 1

With the rise of imperialism, the centuries-old European tradition of humanist scholarship as the key to understanding the world was jeopardized. Nowhere was this more true than in nineteenth-century Germany. It was there, Andrew Zimmerman argues, that the battle lines of today's "culture wars" were first drawn when anthropology challenged humanism as a basis for human scientific knowledge.

Drawing on sources ranging from scientific papers and government correspondence to photographs, pamphlets, and police reports of "freak shows," Zimmerman demonstrates how German imperialism opened the door to antihumanism. As Germans interacted more frequently with peoples and objects from far-flung cultures, they were forced to reevaluate not just those peoples, but also the construction of German identity itself. Anthropologists successfully argued that their discipline addressed these issues more productively—and more accessibly—than humanistic studies.

Scholars of anthropology, European and intellectual history, museum studies, the history of science, popular culture, and colonial studies will welcome this book.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

The rise of imperialism jeopardized the centuries-old European tradition of humanist scholarship as the key to understanding the world. Nowhere was this more true than in nineteenth-century Germany. It was there, Andrew Zimmerman argues, that the battle lines of today's "culture wars" were first drawn when anthropology challenged humanism as a basis for human scientific knowledge.

As Germans interacted more frequently with peoples and objects from far-flung cultures, they were forced to reevaluate not just those peoples, but also the construction of German identity itself. Anthropologists successfully argued that their discipline addressed these issues more productively—and more accessibly—than humanistic studies. Zimmerman draws on sources ranging from scientific papers and government correspondence to photographs, pamphlets, and police reports of "freak shows" to demonstrate how German imperialism opened the door to antihumanism.

Scholars of anthropology, European and intellectual history, museum studies, the history of science, popular culture, and colonial studies will welcome this book.

About the Author

Andrew Zimmerman is an assistant professor of history at George Washington University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (November 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226983420
• ISBN-13: 978-0226983424
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #248,249 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrew Zimmerman is associate professor of history at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. Before joining the history department at George Washington University, he completed his PhD in history at the University of California, San Diego, and was a Mellon fellow in history at the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia University. He is currently at work on a global history of the American Civil War.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Anthropology in Historical Context, November 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany (Hardcover)

Andrew Zimmerman's book examines anthropology in Germany as an historical phenomenon very much informed by contemporary German politics and society. "Antihumanism" here is not to be understood as brutality but rather as opposition to the disciplinary traditions of European humanism--to the academic priviledging of "Kulturvoelker," written cultures, and a Eurocentric perspective of humanity in general. The antihumanist mission of the first mid- to late-19th-century anthropologists was discovery of the fundamental nature and natural history of humanity through a natural scientific approach to the study of so-called "Naturvoelker": natural peoples, humanity unconcealed by the accretions of culture. In some respects these anthropologists considered their antihumanism as trumping traditional humanism by returning humanity as a whole to the critical gaze of science.
Zimmerman situates the operation and development of German anthropology within the politics of the Kulturkampf, the aims of colonialism, an emerging consumer culture and love of spectacle, and the associationalism characteristic of late 19th-century Germany. He discusses the role of the museum and display, of anthropological fieldwork in Germany's colonies; methodological developments in skull measurement, photography, and drawing of subjects/objects; and the emergence of a cultural-historical approach to anthropology--details that both determined and then changed the face of anthropology during the Kaiserreich.
I have read this book in a class on Germany's long nineteenth century, where it contributed to continuing discussions about the development of a public sphere, civil society and nation; about the reception of the body and the codification and pathologization of behaviors; and more recently about the role of ethnicity in nation-state citizenship. This work combines some genuinely entertaining anecdotal stories about German anthropology with in-depth contextualization and forewarnings of the more gruesome inhumanities to emerge from a purely scientific-objective approach to the study and categorization of humanity. Zimmerman makes an unfortunate leap to the racial hygienics of National Socialism without adequately discussing the effects of World War I on both the methodology of anthropology and the experiences of the men (and few women) who worked in the name of "antihumanism", thus in some respects promoting the Sonderweg-ish approach that so much historiography explicitly challenges. Nevertheless, his work is successful as an insightful and very rich examination of the intersection of politics, world affairs, commercialism, and social development in the formation of an academic-scientific pursuit of unique significance for its time.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars inseparable connection between German ethnology and colonialism, October 10, 2007

By 

K. Opoku - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany (Paperback)

ANDREW ZIMMERMAN HAS WRITTEN A MASTERPIECE WHICH SHOULD BE THE JOY OF ALL THOSE WHO ENJOY READING A WELL-RESEARCHED BOOK WHICH IS ALSO WELL WRITTEN WITHOUT ANY JARGON OR OBSCURE LANGUAGE.HE DEMONSTRATES WITH AMPLE EXAMPLES THE INTIMATE CONNECTION BETWEEN GERMAN ETHNOLOGY AND COLONIALISM.HE SHOWS HOW ETHNOLOGISTS LIKE LUSCHAN PROFITED FROM THE COLONIAL SYSTEM BY USING THE NAVY,THE ARMY AND THE COLONIAL SERVICE TO COLLECT ETHNOGRAPHICAL OBJECTS WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN OTHERWISE IMPOSSIBLE TO OBTAIN SUCH AS RELIGIOUS OBJECTS OF RITUAL SIGNIFICANCE.HE ALSO DEMONSTRATES HOW FORCE AND TERROR WERE USED TO PERSUADE INHABITANTS OF COLONIES TO PART WITH OBJECTS THE ETHNOLOGISTS DEEMED NECESSARY FOR THEIR COLLECTION.MANY ETHNOLOGISTS WERE ALSO IN FAVOUR OF USING MILITARY FORCE FOR THE ACQUISITION OF OBJECTS FROM THE COLONIES. ONCE YOU HAVE READ ZIMMERMAN'S BOOK, IT IS DIFFICULT TO ACCEPT THE ASSERTION BY ETHNOLOGISTS THAT THEY ACQUIRED MANY OF THEIR OBJECTS THROUGH PURCHASE OR AS GIFTS.INDEED, SOMETIMES, THE ETHNOLOGISTS STOLE FROM THE COLONIAL SUBJECTS.
THIS IS A BOOK ALL THOSE DEALING WITH THE QUESTION OF RESTITUTION OF LOOTED ART OBJECTS SHOULD READ.
kWAME OPOKU.