History and Theory in Anthropology

Anthropology is a discipline very conscious of its history, and Alan Barnard has written a clear, balanced and judicious textbook that surveys the historical contexts of the great debates and traces the genealogies of theories and schools of thought. It also considers the problems involved in assessing these theories. The book covers the precursors of anthropology; evolutionism...

Anthropology is a discipline very conscious of its history, and Alan Barnard has written a clear, balanced and judicious textbook that surveys the historical contexts of the great debates and traces the genealogies of theories and schools of thought. It also considers the problems involved in assessing these theories. The book covers the precursors of anthropology; evolutionism in all its guises; diffusionism and culture area theories, functionalism and structural-functionalism; action-centred theories; processual and Marxist perspectives; the many faces of relativism, structuralism and post-structuralism; and recent interpretive and postmodernist viewpoints.

Alan Barnard is Emeritus Professor of the Anthropology of Southern Africa, University of Edinburgh. His many books include Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa, Social Anthropology and Human Origins, Genesis of Symbolic Thought, Language in Prehistory, and Bushmen: Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers and Their Descendants, all published by Cambridge University Press. In 2010 he was ele...

Alan Barnard is Emeritus Professor of the Anthropology of Southern Africa, University of Edinburgh. His many books include Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa, Social Anthropology and Human Origins, Genesis of Symbolic Thought, Language in Prehistory, and Bushmen: Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers and Their Descendants, all published by Cambridge University Press. In 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.