Publisher Description

For over twenty years, A History of Anthropological Theory has provided a strong foundation for understanding anthropological thinking, tracing how the discipline has evolved from its origins to the present day. The sixth edition of this important text offers substantial updates throughout, including more balanced coverage of the four fields of anthropology, an entirely new section on the Anthropocene, and significantly revised discussions of public anthropology, gender and sexuality, and race and ethnicity. Written in accessible prose and enhanced with illustrations, key terms, and study questions in each section, this text remains essential reading for those interested in studying the history of anthropology.On its own or used with the companion volume, Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory, sixth edition, this text provides comprehensive coverage in a flexible and easy-to-use format for teaching in the anthropology classroom.

Author Biography

Paul A. Erickson is a past professor in the Department of Anthropology at Saint Mary's University.Liam D. Murphy is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at California State University, Sacramento.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Preface
Timeline
Introduction Part One: The Early History of Anthropological Theory
Anthropology in Antiquity
The Middle Ages
The Renaissance
Voyages of Geographical Discovery
The Scientific Revolution
The Enlightenment
The Rise of Positivism
Marxism
Classical Cultural Evolutionism
Evolutionism versus Diffusionism
Archaeology Comes of Age
Charles Darwin and Darwinism
Sigmund Freud
Émile Durkheim
Marcel Mauss
Max Weber
Ferdinand de Saussure Part Two: The Earlier Twentieth Century
American Cultural Anthropology
Franz Boas
Robert Lowie and Alfred Louis Kroeber
Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict
Zora Neale Hurston
Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf
The Development of Psychological Anthropology
British Social Anthropology
A.R. Radcliffe-Brown
Bronislaw Malinowski
E.E. Evans-Pritchard
Edmund Leach
Max Gluckman and the "Manchester School"
The Legacy of British Social Anthropology Part Three: The Later Twentieth Century
French Structural Anthropology
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Mary Douglas
Latter-Day Structuralists
Structural Marxists
Marshall Sahlins
The Legacy of French Structural Anthropology
Cognitive Anthropology
Ethnoscience and the "New Ethnography"
Cultural Neo-evolutionism
Leslie White
Julian Steward
Marshall Sahlins and Elman Service
The New Archaeology
Cultural Materialism
Marvin Harris
Nature versus Nurture
Biology of Behaviour
The New Physical Anthropology
Ethology and Behavioural Genetics
Sociobiology
The Symbolic Turn
Victor Turner and Symbolic Anthropology
Clifford Geertz and Interpretive Anthropology
Post-processual Archaeology
The Influence of Symbolic and Interpretive Approaches  
Transactionalism
Fredrik Barth
Anthropology and Feminism
Political Economy
Marx and the World System
Sins of the Fathers
Ideology, Culture, and Power
Postcolonialism
Linguistic Anthropology Comes of Age
Speech Acts and the Ethnography of Communication
Ethnolinguistics and Sociolinguistics
Postmodernity
Paul Feyerabend
Michel Foucault
Pierre Bourdieu 
Anthropology as Text 
Critical Medical Anthropology Part Four: The Early Twenty-First Century
Globalization
Culture, Gender, and Sexualities
Public Anthropology
Development and Controversy
Distinguishing Public from Applied Anthropology
Debating Fieldwork Ethics and the Military
Serving a Global Public
World Traditions and Collaborative Anthropology
National Traditions and the Dominance of Anglo-America
Collaboration with "Other" Voices
Anthropologies of the Digital Age

Review

"A History of Anthropological Theory is the textbook to teach, understand, question, and critique our discipline's canon. Paul A. Erickson and Liam D. Murphy have updated their venerable classic with a comprehensive, accessible, and critical road map to the shifting winds of anthropological theory. Theirs is an invaluable teaching resource, accessible to students grappling with our discipline's history, for better and worse." --Daniel Tubb, University of New Brunswick
"The sixth edition of this text offers important and timely updates in key areas of anthropology. The new section on the Anthropocene challenges not only the future of anthropology but also the future of human survival and our role in shaping our very existence. This text, now more than ever, remains essential reading for those seeking an accessible and comprehensive history of anthropology."--Yolanda T. Moses, University of California, Riverside

Long Description

For over twenty years, A History of Anthropological Theory has provided a strong foundation for understanding anthropological thinking, tracing how the discipline has evolved from its origins to the present day. The sixth edition of this important text offers substantial updates throughout, including more balanced coverage of the four fields of anthropology, an entirely new section on the Anthropocene, and significantly revised discussions of public anthropology, gender and sexuality, and race and ethnicity. Written in accessible prose and enhanced with illustrations, key terms, and study questions in each section, this text remains essential reading for those interested in studying the history of anthropology. On its own or used with the companion volume, Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory , sixth edition , this text provides comprehensive coverage in a flexible and easy-to-use format for teaching in the anthropology classroom.

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