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A review by sahanac
Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King
adventurous
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Okay look – I was an anthro major in college, and so in part, the fact that I liked this book so much has to do with that fact, alright? I own that. This is probably not everyone’s cup of tea. And I’ve got two book-related resolutions for 2024, and that’s more non-fiction and audiobooks. This title was a twofer. All in all, it felt like a winning situation for me personally, so I will indeed admit to some bias here.
But a sneak peek into the founding polycule of anthropology, the inception of the field, and the actual ground-breaking, society-forming theories that were created by one dude and his ducklings of a department? It was pretty wild reading overall.
Of course, the book is not perfect. There’s a bit of hero worship and a bit of frou frou, “these were the coolest, wokest, most progressive people to live!” vibe in there that King does little to combat. But truthfully, most of the impressive and progressive thinking did actually belong to the people listed above. They did shape the way that we think about race now. So it was easy for me to forgive any embellishment on King’s part – these people may have actually just been that crazy cool.
But a sneak peek into the founding polycule of anthropology, the inception of the field, and the actual ground-breaking, society-forming theories that were created by one dude and his ducklings of a department? It was pretty wild reading overall.
Of course, the book is not perfect. There’s a bit of hero worship and a bit of frou frou, “these were the coolest, wokest, most progressive people to live!” vibe in there that King does little to combat. But truthfully, most of the impressive and progressive thinking did actually belong to the people listed above. They did shape the way that we think about race now. So it was easy for me to forgive any embellishment on King’s part – these people may have actually just been that crazy cool.