Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction

"If you want to know what anthropologyis, look at what anthropologistsdo," write the authors ofSocial 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 andCultural Anthropologywill make fascinating reading for anyone curious about this social science.

Peter Just is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Williams College. He is the author of Dou Donggo Justice: Conflict and Morality in an Indonesian Society.
John Monaghan is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of The Covenants With Earth and Rain: Exchange, Sacrifice, and Revelation in Mixtec Sociality.