Anthropology and Egalitarianism

Download or read book Anthropology and Egalitarianism written by Eric Gable and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-03 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.