本书被英语学术界视为人类学经典读物，重点检讨人类学家与他们的研究对象之间的关系，特别提出“人类学是西方世界的一种宇宙观”的看法，并为文化批评学家、哲学家和历史学家所从事的有关人类社会的研究提出了新的方向。费边指出，人类学家常常将自己的立场假定为“在此时此地者”，与此同时将他们的研究对象假定为“在彼时彼地者”。因而，人类学将其研究对象作为与研究者所处的时代错开的“他者”。费边在这本书中挑战了西方人类学的“他者”假定。根据他的洞见，在西方人类学发展的历史中，由于人类学家们对“多样性时间”的娴熟运用，人类学的产生、发展和转变，都涉及到人类学背后的权力与不平等关系。许多著名学者因此给了该书极高的评价，乔治?马库斯认为，该书“是对人类学书写的彻底的认识论批评。”

Fabian's study is a classic in the field that changed the way anthropologists relate to their subjects and is of immense value not only to anthropologists but to all those concerned with the study of man. A new foreward by Matti Bunzl brings the influence of Fabian's study up to the present. Time and the Other is a critique of the notions that anthropologists are "here and now," their objects of study are "there and then," and that the "other" exists in a time not contemporary with our own.