THE ANTHROPOLOGIST: "The Anthropology Days" of 1904
The Anthropology Days was an extraordinary event in modern world history. It took place in St. Louis as part of the 1904 World's Fair and the Olympics. This is a vivid and down-to-earth example that students can relate to in curriculum units on ethnocentrism, colonialism, imperialism, and racism. The Anthropology Days was a sports competition in which the competitors were non-Western individuals all labelled as more or less "savage" by the organizers. They were divided into eight main groups: "Africans,"
"Asians" (Turks and Syrians), "Filippinos," "Ainus from Japan," "Patagonian Indians" (from South America), "Cocopas" (Indians from Mexico), "Pueblos" (Indians from North America) and "Americanized Indians." With varying degrees of interest, these peoples took part in a variety of western sporting events that were not native to their own cultures or customs. The winners of the event were given American flags rather than gold medals.
The goal of The Anthropology Days was to measure scientifically the physical abilities of the participants' respective cultural groups, and compare them with the recorded abilities of sport's dominant cultural group at the time: the white man. In essence, they were brought to the World's Fair to be displayed by their colonial masters. So their performances were carefully measured and recorded. Needless to say, given the fact that they took part in events that were unknown to them, the results did not impress. According to one report, the event nevertheless was a "brilliant success" because it confirmed a colonial image of subordinate peoples: they were inferior in every respect, including sports. The event "scientifically" legitimized racism, as did numerous "experiments" of its kind throughout the twentieth century.
This review of The Anthropology Days was written by David Levinson (bio), a cultural anthropologist and President of Berkshire Publishing Group.
Read a related article on Imperialism by Jeremy H. Neill, a contributor to the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History.
Click here to see a photograph of natives of the Phillipines competing at "The Anthropology Days" of 1904.
BOOK REVIEW: Europe and the People Without History
Wolf, Eric. Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. First published in 1982. This book, by anthropologist Eric Wolf, more so than any other, crosses the divide and tells us of the common ground shared by world history and anthropology. Wolf takes an explicitly interactive, connective approach to trace the story of the last 600 years of world history from the viewpoint of both the winners (Europe) and the losers (non-Western peoples). While too long and dense for most high school students in a one-semester survey of world history, it contains several chapters worth dipping into. The Fur Trade (Chapter 6) is especially relevant as it focuses on the New World-Old World interaction and the effect of European contact on Native American culture and history. And the sections on Stimulants (Chapter 11) and The Movement of Commodities (Chapter 11), when considered together, are especially useful because they combine to cover often-overlooked topics and provide valuable background to consideration of the modern drug trade.
Read more in an article about Drugs and the drug trade by David T. Courtwright, a contributor to the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History.
RESOURCE REVIEW: The Avalon Project at Yale Law School
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School is an outstanding source of materials for world history teachers and scholars. With an excellent collection of primary documents from the Code of Hammurabi up to the present, major topics
covered are Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. Documents are accessible by subject searching and quick and easy browsing
of document lists organized by time period, general subject, and specific
subject. Documents are clean and readable, with full bibliographic information.
Links are provided to related documents outside the collection. The following link will take you to The Avalon Project.
BERKSHIRE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD HISTORY ORDERING INFORMATION
- Edited by William H. McNeill, Jerry Bentley, David Christian, et al.
- Berkshire Publishing Group, October 2004
- Five volumes, 2,500 pages
- US$575-Prepublication US$525 (good through December 31, 2004)
- ISBN: 0-9743091-0-9 (hardcover: alk. paper)
- Online: BerkshireWorldHistory.com
- Shelving = World History, Social Sciences
A BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION!!! On Sunday, 31 October, William H. McNeill celebrated his 87th birthday with a circle of family and friends. Berkshire's Karen Christensen and David Levinson were there, and surprised Bill with the very first copy of the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History, hot off the presses!
Needless to say, this is an exciting time for Berkshire Publishing. We constantly build strong relationships with librarians, teachers, and professors around the world and we value your feedback regarding any facet of our products, be it a specific work or the nature of our electronic newsletters.
Please feel free to email me with any comments or suggestions.
With best regards,
Karen Christensen, CEO
Berkshire Publishing Group
karen@berkshirepublishing.com
"If we do not take the time to review the past we shall not have sufficient insight to understand the present or command the future: for the past never leaves us, and the future is already here."-Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine
Did you know that it is now customary for federal courts to accept a party's filings in electronic format, usually PDF? This is a far cry from only a decade ago. During the fifteen months (1994-95) before I went to law school, I worked as a paralegal in one of Washington D.C.'s Supreme Court litigation boutiques. Filing a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court-and, during the 1994 Term, we filed many, including merits briefs in five landmark cases-was always special. In addition to the high-stakes legal issues at hand, it was special because at 5:00am, there I was (again!) at Wilson-Epes Printing on the corner of 6th and Constitution Avenue, where history has been printed for decades. Located in what looks almost like an abandoned building is the most highly-respected Supreme Court printer in the land. It was not unusual to see well-known government lawyers or superstar appellate litigators walk in the doors and drink the same ashen coffee that I had brewed hours earlier. Wilson-Epes was magical. There were no computers, no cell phones, and no word processors to make revisions. One heard only the hum of actual hard-cast lead printing presses-each operated by union members with larger-than-life personalities and the ability to size someone up from a mile away- whirring in order to get us the next round (of usually 8-10 rounds) of galleys. The ink was wet; it smeared everywhere; it was, literally, hot off the press. All this may seem a bit out of the ordinary, but there's a reason behind it all: the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court won't have it any other way. The paper quality is as refined as parchment. One can feel the raised impress of the letters. The briefs actually smell good. From Papyrus to Paper to PDF, times change, but even some of the smallest details, at least for now, remain the same.
This personal Legal Perspective was written by Ben Kerschberg, a graduate of Yale Law School and Vice President of Berkshire Publishing Group.
Read a related article on 