Writing while war devastated Europe, Franz Boas rejects the claim that it was an unavoidable clash of Teutonic, Slav and Latin races. He calls the great blond Aryan a fiction, shows that physical type and race do not coincide with nation or language, and argues that what binds a nation is a shared emotional and everyday life.
A short, forceful statement from the founder of modern American anthropology against racial theories of nationhood. Download the free EPUB.