SOURCE: "Anthropology as Kulturkampf Science and Politics in the Career of Franz Boas," in The Ethnographer's Magic, and Other Essays in the History of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin Press, 1992, pp. 92-113.

A distinguished American anthropologist, Stocking is the editor of numerous volumes of writings on the subject. In the following excerpt, which was originally published in the 1979 collection The Uses of Anthropology, he discusses the political dimension ofBoas's thought.

Although it would be presumptuous in the space available to attempt systematic evaluation, one can scarcely avoid a few general comments on Boas' career as a scientific activist. Let us take as reference point certain limitations to Boas' activist role. Even after his move toward socialism, he was not much concerned with the redistribution of economic resources and political power. Nor was he ever much involved in the problems of the American Indian—though he was quite active privately...