全书分为九章，以人类学的眼光，从不同的角度讲座了诸如种族、民族主义、国际主义、教育、文化和社会上的一些被曲解的问题，如优生学、犯罪学等。博厄斯的主要观点是历史特殊论、文化相对论文及文化决定论，在本书中都表现得非常清楚。<br><br> 本书前言<br>本书是美国著名人类学家弗朗兹·博厄斯最重要的代表著作之一。作者通过本书的论述，明确地倡导着民族历史特殊论，强调不同种族，民族以及族群间文化素质的相对

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: H. INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT UPON HUMAN TYPES After having seen that the high estimate of our civilization does not necessarily imply that the carriers of this civilization have an anatomical organization superior to that of all other races, we may turn our attention to a closer investigation of the characteristics of different divisions of mankind. It is clear that our investigations cannot be based on vague descriptions of travellers, ? who remark upon the enormous digestive organs of primitive man, or on his small size, or on the lack of development of his limbs, or even upon his resemblance to apes,? but on serious studies of anatomical characteristics. Two problems may be distinguished here which have too often been confounded in discussions of the mental characteristics of civilized man and of primitive man. / The one relates to the distinctions between races; the other, to distinctions between the social strata of the same race. According to the meaning of the terms "civilized " and "primitive," it is perfectly conceivable that there may be civilized groups belonging to different races (like the Chinese and Europeans), and civilized as well as primitive groups, both belonging to the same race (like the Yukaghir of Siberia and the Chinese, or like the group of educated negroes in the United States and the primitive tribes of the coasts of Africa). The problems presented by the differences between the various races of man, and by the differences between social groups in the same races, are, of course, entirely distinct, and each requires separate treatment./ There is one peculiarity common to both problems, which must be described before we can properly take up their treatment. When we compare the individuals comprising any one racial or social t...