Anthropology Anthropology Culture Society

"Critics against Culture: Anthropological Observers of Mass Society--a collection of essays on the history of anthropology focused on Benedict, Boas, Sapir, and modernist thought by one of American anthropology's leading scholars--explores the roots of anthropology's early involvement with the study of American society. The essays making up this volume, focused on the critique of mass society and the history of the culture concept, examine Boasian anthropologists as critics of mass society. The book also includes two new, unpublished essays: one on Alexis de Tocqueville and Margaret Mead, the other on Jules Henry and Richard Hoggart. Handler offers a striking analysis of Boasian cultural criticism and the intersection between anthropology, American studies, and cultural studies.

Anthropology: Theoretical Practice in Culture and Society builds on a collaborative, international project sponsored by UNESCO to offer an overview of social and cultural anthropology. The volume offers a vision of the "militant middle ground" between theory and practice, humanistic and scientific approaches, and symbolic and materialist perspectives. Rejecting conventional layout, noted anthropologist Michael Herzfeld brings his collaborators -- specialists in their various fields -- into a broader conversation about the ways in which social and cultural anthropology can illuminate aspects of the human condition that less intimate approaches cannot reveal. Anthropology: Theoretical Practice in Culture and Society addresses the theoretical as well as ethical commitments that have enabled anthropologists to play a leading role in the critique of racism and other forms of intolerance. Herzfeld examines topics ranging from mass media, environmental and development issues, kinship and suffering in transnational settings, the politics of both the nation-state and the local community, the arts, cosmologies of science as well as religion, to the relationship between social life and history. Readers will find their eyes opened to the complexities of culture and society at a time of vastly intensified communication and contact, and will discover that anthropology offers unique insights into both the common predicaments of humankind and the specific ways that different groups have developed to address those predicaments.