Franz Boas

I really admire Franz Boas. He was a german/jew anthropologist that was born on July 9, 1858 and died on december 21, 1942. He developed his career at the United States, and standed out because of his new anthropologic theory, called "Historical Particularism”. This theory was against racism and contradicted evolutionism, the prevailing paradigm of that time, which stated a lineal way to see human diversity. Besides this theory developed the concept of “cultural relativism” which explained that every culture and folk had their own and particular history. This means that a group was not always molded after the influence of another and greater culture or human group, nor had to develop in certain stages as tribe, chiefdom, state, empire, etc. A great portion of his work was the study of the Inuit of North America, who also helped him to develop his theory. I like him because of the implications of his ideas, since they started a positive and revolutionary theoretical reflection towards the mankind and society conformation itself.