[PDF] Social & Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction

Social & Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction is a book that helps its readers in understanding the basics of anthropology. It helps them find out more about the nature of the work that anthropologists do.

Social & Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction is an introduction to the world of anthropology. Its main purpose is to help a person with no background in anthropology to understand the subject. It combines the main methodologies and principles of anthropology with a large number of illustrations and examples of anthropologists. The book begins by explaining the most important contributions anthropology has given to modern thinking. As the book progresses, it shows readers the way culture is viewed upon as a distinctively human characteristic. It discusses how the doctrine of anthropology is based on cultural relativism, its ethnography, and methodology for fieldwork. The book progresses to examine how humanity’s understanding of the various facets of society has been advanced by anthropology.

“If you want to know what anthropology is, look at what anthropologists do,” write the authors of Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction. This engaging overview of the field combines an accessible account of some of the discipline’s guiding principles and methodology with abundant examples and illustrations of anthropologists at work. Peter Just and John Monaghan begin by discussing anthropology’s most important contributions to modern thought: its investigation of culture as a distinctively human characteristic, its doctrine of cultural relativism, and its methodology of fieldwork and ethnography. Drawing on examples from their own fieldwork in Indonesia and Mesoamerica, they examine specific ways in which social and cultural anthropology have advanced our understanding of human society and culture. Including an assessment of anthropology’s present position, and a look forward to its likely future, Social and Cultural Anthropology will make fascinating reading for anyone curious about this social science.

Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) PDF

Author(s): John Monaghan, Peter Just

Year: 2000

ISBN: 0192853465,9780192853462