"Before Boas" by Han F. Vermeulen awarded the ICAS Book Prize 2017
Han F. Vermeulen, research associate and historian of anthropology at the Department 'Integration and Conflict' of the Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology, has received another award for his book Before Boas: The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German Enlightenment. The International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) has honoured him with the ICAS Book Prize 2017 in the category "English Language Edition – Social Sciences" during a plenary ceremony in Chiang Mai, Thailand, on 20 July.
"I was pleased with this award as it is prestigious in the field of Asian studies and because the competition was strong with no less than 147 submissions", says Vermeulen. The 746-page long book is his magnum opus, on which he has worked for over 30 years. In its motivation the ICAS Reading Committee refers to Before Boas as "a masterpiece and a major contribution to the history of anthropology at large and rightful winner of the ICAS Book Prize 2017 in the Social Sciences." The book has also been well received in Germany. Calling it "a sensation", the art historian Horst Bredekamp listed it as one of the most important books he had read in 2016 (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 27 December 2016). A paperback edition will be published in 2018. Russian and German translations are planned.