1st Edition

Critical Anthropology Foundational Works

Edited By Stephen Nugent Copyright 2012

    Critical anthropology has had a major influence on the discipline, shifting it away from concepts of bounded societies with evolutionary trajectories to complex analyses of interconnected economic, political, and social processes. This book brings together some of critical anthropology’s most influential writings, collecting classic articles and spirited rebuttals by major scholars such as Eric Wolf, Marshall Sahlins, Sidney Mintz, Andre Gunder Frank, and Michael Taussig. Editor Stephen Nugent positions these key debates, originally published in the journal Critique of Anthropology, with new introductions that detail the lasting influence of these articles on anthropology over four decades, showing how critical anthropology is relevant today more than ever. An ideal supplementary text, this book is a rich exploration of intellectual history that will continue to shape anthropology for decades to come.

    Introduction; Part I Marxism in the American Anthropological Tradition; Chapter 1 ) published in American Anthropology, 76:824–39. : A Response to the American Anthropologist, Stanley Diamond, Bob Scholte, Eric R. Wolf; Chapter 2 The Worst of Architects is Better than the Best of Bees: A Debate between Eric Wolf and Maurice Godelier; Chapter 3 Production and Reproduction: Meillassoux’s Femmes, Greniers et Capitaux, Bridget O’Laughlin; Part III Dependency Theory, World Systems Theory and Pre-history; Chapter 4 Transitional Ideological Modes: Feudalism, Capitalism, Socialism, Andre Gunder Frank; Chapter 5 World System versus World-Systems: A Critique, Immanuel Wallerstein; Part IV The Development of Peasantries under Capitalism; Chapter 6 Indonesia after the Demise of Involution: Critique of a Debate, Joel S. Kahn; Chapter 7 Something about Peasants, History and Capitalism, William Roseberry; Part V The Crisis of Representation and Writing Culture; Chapter 8 Bob Scholte; Chapter 9 Still Rayting: Response to Scholte, Stephen A. Tyler; Part VI Working over History: Cultural Idealism and Materialism; Chapter 10 No History Is an Island: An Exchange between Jonathan Friedman and Marshall Sahlins, Jonathan Friedman; Chapter 11 Deserted Islands of History: A Reply to Jonathan Friedman, Marshall Sahlins; Part VII Fighting over Commodities and History; Chapter 12 History as a Commodity in Some Recent American (Anthropological) Literature, Michael Taussig; Chapter 13 Whither Commodities? Reply to Michael Taussig, Sidney W. Mintz, Eric R. Wolf;

    Biography

    Stephen Nugent