Unlike a lifetime achievement award for research, the Boas Award specifically honors extraordinary service to the discipline itself . Recipients are recognized for their efforts to advance anthropology as a profession, protect academic freedom, apply anthropology to public policy, or defend human rights.

Pushing the boundaries of the four-field approach (cultural, linguistic, biological, and archaeological).

Author of the masterpiece Europe and the People Without History , Wolf used his acceptance of the to critique the Cold War politics that were distorting social science. He reminded the association that Boas was a vocal anti-fascist who fled Nazi Germany in spirit if not in body.

The Franz Boas Awards are a prestigious recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of anthropology. Established in 1987, the awards are given annually by the American Anthropological Association (AAA) to recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of anthropology. The awards are named after Franz Boas, a German-American anthropologist who is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern anthropology.

Franz Boas was born in 1858 in Minden, Germany. He studied physics and mathematics at the University of Kiel, but his interests soon shifted to anthropology. Boas is best known for his work on the indigenous peoples of North America, particularly the Inuit and the Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest. He was a pioneer in the field of cultural anthropology, and his work laid the foundation for modern anthropological research.

Reviewing the roster of winners is akin reading a "Who’s Who" of ethical anthropology. These individuals embodied Boas’s courage to speak truth to power.