Anthropology and Anthropologists
Douban
The British School in the Twentieth Century
Adam Kuper
overview
Anthropology and Anthropologists provides an entertaining and provocative account of British social anthropology from the foundations of the discipline, through the glory years of the mid-twentieth century and on to the transformation in recent decades. The book shocked the anthropological establishment on first publication in 1973 but soon established itself as one of the introductions for students of anthropology. Forty years later, this now classic work has been radically revised. Adam Kuper situates the leading actors in their historical and institutional context, probes their rivalries, revisits their debates, and reviews their key ethnographies. Drawing on recent scholarship he shows how the discipline was shaped by the colonial setting and by developments in the social sciences.
contents
Preface to the fourth edition
1. Malinowski
2. Radcliffe-Brown
3. The 1930s and 1940s: from function to structure
4. Anthropology and colonialism
5. From charisma to routine: the decade after World War II
6. Edmund Leach and the neo-structuralists
7. Buddy, can you spare a paradigm?
Appendix 1: Some contributions to the history of British social anthropology
Appendix 2: Notes on the theoretical and regional interests of British-based social anthropologists, c.1920-1980
