Anthropology & Egalitarianism

by Gable, Eric

• ISBN13: 9780253222756
• ISBN10: 0253222753
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-12-03
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

Anthropology and Egalitarianism is an artful and accessible introduction to key themes in cultural anthropology. Writing in a deeply personal style and using material from his fieldwork in three dramatically different locales -- Indonesia, West Africa, and Monticello, the historic home of Thomas Jefferson -- Eric Gable shows why the ethnographic encounter is the core of the discipline's method and the basis of its unique contribution to understanding the human condition. Gable weaves together vignettes from the field and discussion of major works as he explores the development of the idea of culture through the experience of cultural contrast, anthropology's fraught relationship to racism and colonialism, and other enduring themes.

Author Biography

Eric Gable teaches anthropology at the University of Mary Washington. He is author (with Richard Handler) of The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction: Culture by Contrast and Theory in Anthropology	p. 1
Supping with Savages	p. 15
Standing in a Line	p. 35
Jefferson's Ardor	p. 57
The Colonialist's Dress Code	p. 80
Taking Pictures in the Field, or the Anthropologist's Dress Code	p. 97
Beyond Belief	p. 127
The Sex Life of Savages	p. 157
Conclusion: Tending to Nature, Tending to Culture; or, Is Anthropology History?	p. 184
Notes on Sources	p. 211
References	p. 219
Index	p. 225
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.