An amateur barbarian: the life and career of Sir Richard Francis Burton, 1821-1890

"With numerous contributions to geography and literature, Sir Richard Burton is a major Victorian figure. Burton''s main importance to his age lies in the fact that he was one of the premier imperial communicators of his time, disseminating numerous aspects of indigenous societies--social, political, economic, religious, sexual--to the Metropole, contributing not only data but helping to define and reinforce Victorian perceptions of the "outside" world. As one of the founders of the organisation which became the Royal Anthropological Institute, Burton was instrumental in helping the fledgling science of anthropology gain respectability as a discipline..."