Early History of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German Enlightenment
Subtitle: Anthropological Discourse in Europe and Asia, 1710-1808
By: PhD thesis Leiden University
Publisher: privately printed
Published: November 12, 2008
Place of publication: Leiden
Number of pages: 411
Work titles: German
First sentence: The present book reports on research on the early history of anthropology in Europe, Asia, and North America conducted over the past twenty years.
Description: Socio-cultural anthropology originated in the field in Siberia and was developed in academic centers in Göttingen and Vienna during the eighteenth century. German-speaking scholars invented and practiced a science of peoples designated as Völker-Beschreibung (1740), ethnographia (1767-71), Völkerkunde (1771-75) and ethnologia (1781-83). The German ethnographic tradition influenced scholars in Russia, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, and Bohemia, as well as in France, the United States, and Great Britain. Historiography has largely ignored these developments. To correct this omission, the early actors are introduced and their work is placed in a historical, academic, and political context.
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