Montague Francis Ashley-Montagu (born Israel Ehrenberg; June 28, 1905November 26, 1999) was a British-American anthropologist who popularized the study of topics such as race and gender and their relation to politics and development. He was the rapporteur, in 1950, for the UNESCO "statement on race".

As a young man he changed his name from Ehrenberg to "Montague Francis Ashley-Montagu". After relocating to the United States he used the name "Ashley Montagu".

Montagu, who became a naturalized American citizen in 1940, taught and lectured at Harvard, Princeton, Rutgers, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and New York University. Forced out of his Rutgers position after the McCarthy hearings, he repositioned himself as a public intellectual in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing regularly on television shows and writing for magazines and newspapers. He authored over 60 books throughout this lifetime. In 1995, the American Humanist Association named him the Humanist of the Year.

Early life and education

Montagu was born Israel Ehrenberg on June 28, 1905, in London, England. He grew up in London's East End. He remembered often being subjected to antisemitic abuse when he ventured out of his own Jewish neighborhood. Montagu attended the Central Foundation Boys' School. He developed an interest in anatomy very early and as a boy was befriended by Scottish anatomist and anthropologist Arthur Keith under whom he studied informally.

In 1922, at the age of 17, he entered University College London, where he received a diploma in psychology after studying with Karl Pearson and Charles Spearman and taking anthropology courses with Grafton Elliot Smith and Charles Gabriel Seligman. He also studied at the London School of Economics, where he became one of the first students of Bronisław Malinowski. In 1931, he emigrated to the United States. At this time, he wrote a letter introducing himself to Harvard anthropologist Earnest Hooton, claiming to have been "educated at Cambridge, Oxford, London, Florence, and Columbia" and to have earned M.A. and PhD degrees.

Career

During the 1940s and 1950s, Montagu published a series of works questioning the validity of race as a biological concept, including the UNESCO "Statement on Race", and his very well known Man's Most Dangerous Myth: the Fallacy of Race. He was particularly opposed to the work of Carleton S. Coon, and the term "race". In 1952, together with William Vogt, he gave the first Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture, inaugurating the series.

Montagu wrote the Foreword and Bibliography of the 1955 edition of Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution by Petr Kropotkin, which was reprinted in 2005.

Due to disputes concerning his involvement with the UNESCO "Statement on Race", Montagu became a target for anti-communists, and, lacking tenure, was dismissed from Rutgers University and "found all other academic avenues blocked." He retired from his academic career in 1955 and moved to Princeton, New Jersey to continue his popular writing and public appearances. He became a well-known guest of Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show. He addressed his numerous published studies of the significant relationship of mother and infant to the general public. The humanizing effects of touch informed the studies of isolation-reared monkeys and adult pathological violence that is the subject of his Time-Life documentary Rock A Bye Baby (1970). Also in 1970, Montagu resided at the North Shore Inn, which was the last year of the inn's operation before it was razed that fall. The North Shore Inn was located on the grounds of the world-famous Chautauqua Institution, in Chautauqua County, NY. The institute is renowned as a gathering place for philosophy, anthropology, opera, and the arts. Thomas Edison had a summer home there as well.

Later in life, Montagu actively opposed genital modification and mutilation of children including circumcision. In 1994, James Prescott wrote the Ashley Montagu Resolution to End the Genital Mutilation of Children Worldwide: a Petition to the World Court, The Hague, named in honor of Montagu, who was one of its original signers.

Montagu was a noted critic of creationism. He edited Science and Creationism, a volume of essays by several writers, including Isaac Asimov, which refuted creationist arguments.

A posthumous biography of Montagu, Love Forms the Bones, was written by anthropologist Susan Sperling and published in 2005.

Work

Statement on Race

Montagu was one of the ten scientists invited to serve on a UNESCO committee addressing race, later known as the Committee of Experts on Race Problems. The main purpose of the organization was to contribute to world peace and security through science and culture.

Legacy

In 2008, Australia's University of Sydney appointed Dr Stephen Juan as "Ashley Montagu Fellow for the Public Understanding of Human Sciences", a position created especially for Juan (who died in 2018).

  • Montagu is the writer and director of the film One World or None. Produced in 1946 by The National Committee on Atomic Information, this short documentary exposes the dangers of nuclear weapons and argues that only international cooperation and proper control of atomic energy can avoid war and guarantee the use of this force for the benefit of mankind.
  • Footage of Ashley Montagu talking with Charlton Heston about his character in the movie appears as a bonus in the special DVD edition of The Omega Man.
  • Archive footage of him, among others (including Carl Sagan), is featured in The X-Files episode "Gethsemane".
  • The saying "International law exists only in textbooks on international law," which is often attributed to Albert Einstein, was in fact said to Einstein by Montagu.
  • The Cultured Man, Cleveland: World Pub. Co., 1958.
  • Human Heredity, Cleveland: World Pub. Co, 1959.
  • Life Before Birth, New York: New American Library, 1964.
  • The Concept of Race (editor), New York: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964.
  • Up the Ivy, New York: Hawthorn Books, 1966. (published under the pseudonym Academicus Mentor)
  • Man's Evolution: An Introduction to Physical Anthropology, (co-authored with C. Loring Brace), New York: Macmillan, 1965. Second edition published as Human Evolution: An Introduction to Biological Anthropology, New York: Macmillan, 1977, .
  • The Anatomy of Swearing, New York: Macmillan, 1967.
  • The Prevalence of Nonsense, (co-authored with Edward Darling), New York, Harper and Rowe, 1967.
  • Man and Aggression, New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.
  • First publication, 224 pages, in tribute to Howard Gossage. Preface by the author, signed in Princeton on 8. February 1971. Second commercial publication, Harper & Row, 1978, 384 pages. . Third edition, William Morrow Paperback, 1986, 512 pages.
  • The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity, New York: Outerbridge and Dienstfrey, 1971.
  • Culture and Human Development, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974, .
  • Race and IQ (editor), New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.
  • The Nature of Human Aggression, New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
  • Learning Non-Aggression: The Experience of Non-Literate Societies (editor), New York: Oxford University Press, 1978,
  • The Human Connection (co-authored with Floyd W. Matson), New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979, .
  • .
  • Science and Creationism, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1984, . Features the writing of Roger Lewin, Kenneth R. Miller, Robert Root-Bernstein, George M. Marsden, Stephen Jay Gould, Gunther S. Stent, Kenneth E. Boulding, Garrett Hardin, Laurie R. Godfrey, Isaac Asimov, Sidney W. Fox, L. Beverly Halstead, Roger J. Cuffey, Roy A. Gallant, Robert M. May, Michael Ruse, William R. Overton, and Sidney Ratner.
  • Living and Loving (edited with notes by Tsuyoshi Amemiya and Kazuo Takeno), Tokyo: Kinseido, 1986, .
  • The Peace of The World, Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 1987, .
  • The Dehumanization of Man (co-author with Floyd Matson), New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983.
  • Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, 6th edition. Walnut Creek CA: AltaMira Press, 1997
  • The Natural Superiority of Women, 5th edition. Walnut Creek CA: AltaMira Press. 1999.

References

Further reading

  • Ashley Montagu: Papers - an inventory @ Syracuse University Libraries
  • Biographical sketch and publications
  • Ashley Montagu Institute: Bio of Ashley Montagu
  • Ashley Montagu Resolution
  • Mutilated Humanity
  • Territorialism and War from The Nature of Human Aggression (1976)