Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race Book pdf

Montague Francis Ashley Montagu (June 28, 1905-November 26, 1999) – born in Israel Ehrenberg - was a British-American anthropologist who popularized the study of topics such as race and gender and their relationship to politics and development.
It was planned, in 1950, for a UNESCO statement "The Question of Race".
As a young man he changed his name from Ehrenberg to "Montage of Francis Ashley Montagu". After moving to the United States, he used the name "Ashley Montagu".
Montagu, who obtained American citizenship in 1940, has taught and lectured at Harvard, Princeton, Rutgers, University of California, Santa Barbara, and New York University.
Forced out of his post at Rutgers after McCarthy's hearings, he re-established himself as a public intellectual in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing regularly on television shows and writing in magazines and newspapers. He authored more than 60 books throughout his life. In 1995, the American Humanist Association named him "Humanist of the Year".
Montagu Israel Ehrenberg was born on June 28, 1905 in London, England. He grew up in the East End of London. Remember that he was often subjected to antisemitic abuse when he ventured out of his ghetto. Montagu attended Central Foundation School for Boys.
He developed an interest in anatomy very early on, and as a boy he befriended the Scottish anatomist and anthropologist Arthur Keith who studied under his supervision informally.
In 1922, at the age of 17, he entered University College London, where he received a diploma in psychology after studying with Carl Pearson and Charles Spearman and taking courses in anthropology with Grafton Elliot Smith and Charles Gabriel Seligman.
 at the London School of Economics, where he became one of the first Bronisław Malinowski students. In 1931, he immigrated to the United States. At the time, he wrote a letter introducing himself to Harvard anthropologist Ernest Hutton, claiming that he was "educated at Cambridge, Oxford, London, Florence, and Columbia" and had both MA and Ph.D.
In fact, Montagu did not graduate from Cambridge or Oxford and did not have a Ph.D. yet.
He taught anatomy to dental students in the United States, receiving his doctorate in 1936, when he submitted a thesis at Columbia University, Becoming Among Indigenous Australians: A Supervised Study of the Reproductive Beliefs of Australia's Aboriginal Tribes. Written by cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict. He became Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University, working there from 1949 until 1955.
During the 1940s, Montagu published a series of works questioning the validity of race as a biological concept, including UNESCO's "Manifesto on Race", and The Legend of the Most Dangerous Man: The Race Fallacy. He was particularly opposed to the work of Carlton S. Conn, the term "race". In 1952, together with William Vogt, he delivered the first memorial lecture to Alfred Korzybsky, opening the series.

Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race book pdf by Ashley Montagu

Man's Most Dangerous Myth was first published in 1942, when Nazism flourished, when African Americans sat at the back of the bus, and when race was considered the determinant of people's character and intelligence. It presented a revolutionary theory for its time; breaking the link between genetics and culture, it argued that race is largely a social construction and not constitutive of significant biological differences between people. In the ensuing 55 years, as Ashley Montagu's radical hypothesis became accepted knowledge, succeeding editions of his book traced the changes in our conceptions of race and race relations over the 20th century. Now, over 50 years later, Man's Most Dangerous Myth is back in print, fully revised by the original author. Montagu is internationally renowned for his work on race, as well as for such influential books as The Natural Superiority of Women, Touching, and The Elephant Man. This new edition contains Montagu's most complete explication of his theory and a thorough updating of previous editions. The Sixth Edition takes on the issues of the Bell Curve, IQ testing, ethnic cleansing and other current race relations topics, as well as contemporary restatements of topics previously addressed. A bibliography of almost 3,000 published items on race, compiled over a lifetime of work, is of enormous research value. Also available is an abridged student edition containing the essence of Montagu's argument, its policy implications, and his thoughts on contemporary race issues for use in classrooms. Ahead of its time in 1942, Montagu's arguments still contribute essential and salient perspectives as we face the issue of race in the 1990s. Man's Most Dangerous Myth is the seminal work of one of the 20th century's leading intellectuals, essential reading for all scholars and students of race relations.