Anthropology and Antihumanism in Imperial Germany

ANDREW ZIMMERMAN HAS WRITTEN A MASTERPIECE WHICH SHOULD BE THE JOY OF ALL THOSE WHO ENJOY READING A WELL-RESEARCHED BOOK WHICH IS ALSO WELL WRITTEN WITHOUT ANY JARGON OR OBSCURE LANGUAGE.HE DEMONSTRATES WITH AMPLE EXAMPLES THE INTIMATE CONNECTION BETWEEN GERMAN ETHNOLOGY AND COLONIALISM.HE SHOWS HOW ETHNOLOGISTS LIKE LUSCHAN PROFITED FROM THE COLONIAL SYSTEM BY USING THE NAVY,THE ARMY AND THE COLONIAL SERVICE TO COLLECT ETHNOGRAPHICAL OBJECTS WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN OTHERWISE IMPOSSIBLE TO OBTAIN SUCH AS RELIGIOUS OBJECTS OF RITUAL SIGNIFICANCE.HE ALSO DEMONSTRATES HOW FORCE AND TERROR WERE USED TO PERSUADE INHABITANTS OF COLONIES TO PART WITH OBJECTS THE ETHNOLOGISTS DEEMED NECESSARY FOR THEIR COLLECTION.MANY ETHNOLOGISTS WERE ALSO IN FAVOUR OF USING MILITARY FORCE FOR THE ACQUISITION OF OBJECTS FROM THE COLONIES. ONCE YOU HAVE READ ZIMMERMAN'S BOOK, IT IS DIFFICULT TO ACCEPT THE ASSERTION BY ETHNOLOGISTS THAT THEY ACQUIRED MANY OF THEIR OBJECTS THROUGH PURCHASE OR AS GIFTS.INDEED, SOMETIMES, THE ETHNOLOGISTS STOLE FROM THE COLONIAL SUBJECTS. THIS IS A BOOK ALL THOSE DEALING WITH THE QUESTION OF RESTITUTION OF LOOTED ART OBJECTS SHOULD READ. kWAME OPOKU.

Andrew Zimmerman's book examines anthropology in Germany as an historical phenomenon very much informed by contemporary German politics and society. "Antihumanism" here is not to be understood as brutality but rather as opposition to the disciplinary traditions of European humanism--to the academic priviledging of "Kulturvoelker," written cultures, and a Eurocentric perspective of humanity in general. The antihumanist mission of the first mid- to late-19th-century anthropologists was discovery of the fundamental nature and natural history of humanity through a natural scientific approach to the study of so-called "Naturvoelker": natural peoples, humanity unconcealed by the accretions of culture. In some respects these anthropologists considered their antihumanism as trumping traditional humanism by returning humanity as a whole to the critical gaze of science. Zimmerman situates the operation and development of German anthropology within the politics of the Kulturkampf, the aims of colonialism, an emerging consumer culture and love of spectacle, and the associationalism characteristic of late 19th-century Germany. He discusses the role of the museum and display, of anthropological fieldwork in Germany's colonies; methodological developments in skull measurement, photography, and drawing of subjects/objects; and the emergence of a cultural-historical approach to anthropology--details that both determined and then changed the face of anthropology during the Kaiserreich. I have read this book in a class on Germany's long nineteenth century, where it contributed to continuing discussions about the development of a public sphere, civil society and nation; about the reception of the body and the codification and pathologization of behaviors; and more recently about the role of ethnicity in nation-state citizenship. This work combines some genuinely entertaining anecdotal stories about German anthropology with in-depth contextualization and forewarnings of the more gruesome inhumanities to emerge from a purely scientific-objective approach to the study and categorization of humanity. Zimmerman makes an unfortunate leap to the racial hygienics of National Socialism without adequately discussing the effects of World War I on both the methodology of anthropology and the experiences of the men (and few women) who worked in the name of "antihumanism", thus in some respects promoting the Sonderweg-ish approach that so much historiography explicitly challenges. Nevertheless, his work is successful as an insightful and very rich examination of the intersection of politics, world affairs, commercialism, and social development in the formation of an academic-scientific pursuit of unique significance for its time.