Christians, Jews, and the other in German anthropology

National anthropologies, wrote George Stocking, can be seen as little ''nations'' that develop their own foreign policies, formulating distinctions between ''us'' and ''them.'' American and German anthropological nations were both built on literary traditions of primitivism and exoticism, and both exalted the idea of culture. But they developed very different policies toward their interior others. The Indian was the romanticized precursor to American civilization, while the sophisticated, and thus more dangerous, other lay outside the borders. German Jews, because they participated in German intellectual life, were sophisticated internal savages and hence the most dangerous enemy.