Gods of the Upper Air is the history of a transformative era in American social science. King weaves the biographies of the researchers whose discoveries led to these changes into a historical exploration of the methods and findings that came to define the field of anthropology.

During the 1880s, in which the majority of Americans believed in the inherent superiority of those of white Anglo-Saxon descent, Franz Boas’s group of academics questioned this belief and sought alternative ways to describe relationships between and characteristics of groups of human beings. Boas and his students believed these preconceived notions about genetic superiority were the erroneous products of their society rather than universal truths. Through their field research projects, they sought to determine which elements were universal to the human experience, and which were shaped by individual societies.

Boas’s group rejected the presumption that Western society was inherently superior to other societies. While morality would eventually infiltrate their academic and personal perspectives on humanity, their methods were grounded in science. They discovered no evidence of the biological chasms between people of differing ethnic origins that proponents of eugenics claimed existed and concluded that neither researchers nor laypersons should evaluate people from different societies through the lens of their own set of values.