“James Cowles Prichard achieved an international reputation for research on what he called the ‘physical history of mankind,’ publishing pioneering volumes on what is now called anthropology. He did this in the midst of a busy medical practice in Bristol, as well as dedicated participation in Bristol’s civic and scientific life. Margaret Crump does Prichard proud in this fine study of such a multifaceted man and his times.”—William Bynum, professor emeritus at the University College London and author of Science and the Practice of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century
“James Cowles Prichard was Britain’s most significant nineteenth-century, pre-Darwinian anthropologist and brilliant polymath. At long last, Margaret Crump has provided us with a much-needed, comprehensive biography of this exceptional scientist and scholar. Her archival and bibliographical scholarship are second to none and cover such exciting topics as Prichard’s Quaker background and his antiracist support for the notion of the unity of mankind. I wholeheartedly recommend this gem of first-rate academic learning that has implications for current affairs in race and equality.”—Nicolaas A. Rupke, Johnson Professor of History at Washington and Lee University and author of Richard Owen: Biology without Darwin
“Like other famous Bristol figures, including Brunel, Elizabeth Blackwell, and Humphry Davy, Prichard finally has his definitive biography. In this exceedingly informative and engrossing account of the life and times of James Cowles Prichard, Margaret Crump expertly weaves together the life, medical career, and anthropological writings of one of Bristol’s most interesting past inhabitants.”—Jonathan Reinarz, professor of the history of medicine at the University of Birmingham and editor of A Cultural History of Medicine in the Age of Empire
“Margaret Crump rightly points out that for such an eminent Victorian, James Cowles Prichard has been strangely neglected. . . . Crump brings out the connections between Prichard’s career as a physician and as an anthropologist and discusses the influences of his Quaker faith and Tory politics on his scientific thinking. . . . Her study is well written, carefully researched, and full of interesting information.”—Adam Kuper, fellow of the British Royal Society and author of The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions
“Margaret Crump has done a great service in writing this lively, informative, and meticulously researched biography of the remarkable James Cowles Prichard, the visionary and humane English physician and anthropologist whose landmark Researches into the Physical History of Mankind was read by both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. In telling the story of the eminent but often overlooked Prichard, Crump’s wonderfully far-ranging book deftly interweaves the history of medicine, psychiatry, anthropology, linguistics, paleontology, evolution, and even a dash of Egyptology, illuminating the life and thought of this fascinating scientist in the context of his world-changing times.”—James T. Costa, executive director and professor at Highlands Biological Station of Western Carolina University, and author of Radical by Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace
