Charles King

"A dazzling group portrait of Franz Boas, the founder of cultural anthropology, and his circle of women scientists, who upended American notions of race, gender, and sexuality in the 1920s and 1930s--a sweeping chronicle of how our society began to question the basic ways we understand other cultures and ourselves."--Publisher's description.

Author Zora Neale Hurston's anthropological work challenges assumptions about race, gender and cultural superiority that had been defined by the field in the 19th century. She gained renown in the Harlem literary circles, but Hurston was also discovering anthropology at Barnard College with the renowned Franz Boas. She would make several trips to the American South and the Caribbean, documenting the lives of rural Black people and collecting their...