The ethical and ideological implications of cross-cultural image-making continue to stir debate among anthropologists, film scholars, and museum professionals. This innovative book focuses on the contested origins of ethnographic film from the late nineteenth century to the 1920s, vividly depicting the dynamic visual culture of the period as it collided with the emerging discipline of anthropology and the new technology of motion pictures. Featuring more than 100 illustrations, the book examines museums of natural history, world's fairs, scientific and popular photography, and the early filmmaking efforts of anthropologists and commercial producers to investigate how cinema came to assume the role of mediator of cultural difference at the beginning of the twentieth century.

• Analyzes the philosophical questions raised by the fact that many religions in the world often appear to contradict each other in doctrine and practice.
  
• Evaluates the fundamental philosophical underpinnings of the debates between religious and non-religious approaches to religious diversity.
  
• Contains a glossary that defines the book's key technical terms and how they are related to one another.