Born in 1858, Franz Boas permanently changed the standards and practices of anthropology. His 1940 work Race, Language and Culture brings together a half-century's worth of ground-breaking scholarship in one volume. Known for his distinctive approach to the discipline—non-hierarchical, open to diverse inputs, and unbiased—Boas used his scholarship to effect social change. His work convinced his colleagues to abandon the theories that one race (Caucasian) and one culture (Western European) were more fully developed and worthier than others. In Boas's wake, anthropologists everywhere have been challenged to conduct their research and present their findings differently.