American Anthropology, 1971-1995

American anthropology in the late twentieth century interrogated and depicted the worlds of others, past and present, in subtle and incisive ways while increasingly questioning its own authority to do so. Marxist, symbolic, and structuralist thought shaped the fieldwork and conclusions of many researchers across the globe; practicing anthropology blossomed and grew rapidly as a subdiscipline in its own right; there emerged a keener appreciation of both the history of the discipline and the histories of those studied; archaeologists witnessed a resurgence of interest in the concept of culture. The thirty selections in this volume reflect the notable trends and accomplishments in American anthropology during the closing decades of the millennium. Included are important essays by distinguished anthropologists such as Sherry Ortner, Marshall Sahlins, Kent Flannery, Francis Hsu, Roy Rappaport, Clifford Geertz, and Ellen Basso. An introduction by Regna Darnell offers a historical background and critical context to enable readers to better understand the changes and continuity in American anthropology during this time. Regna Darnell is a professor of anthropology at the University of Western Ontario. She is the author of several books including Invisible Genealogies: A History of Americanist Anthropology (Nebraska, 2001), and Edward Sapir: Linguist, Anthropologist, Humanist.