General Overview

“THIS BOOK IS ABOUT women and men who found themselves on the front lines of the greatest moral battle of our time: the struggle to prove that—despite differences of skin color, gender, ability, or custom—humanity is one undivided thing.”
Excerpt From: Charles King. “Gods of the Upper Air.”

"Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century" details the life and work of anthropologist Franz Boas and the four women who studied under him at Columbia. With the help of Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ella Cara Deloria, Boas popularizes the field of cultural anthropology. King dives into both the tumultuous personal and professional lives of these iconic anthropologists. The culture in the 1900s is dissected as Boas and the four women struggle to gain respect from their male peers in anthropology and attack the racist and xenophobic ideas which were popular in that era.