'This anthropology business is hot', she thought quietly to herself while reading.
There is an interesting discussion going on down the road at Savage Minds for those interested.
Ryan Anderson has invited readers to recommend five anthropology books that ‘best represent the discipline’, while remaining accessible to a general readership. I was asked by a fellow Twitter-goer what my choice of five might be, and after a little deliberation, I decided thus (in no particular order):
Structure and Function in Primitive Society: essays and addresses, by the ever earnest A. R. Radcliffe-Brown.
‘A cognitive/cultural anthropology’ by Claudia Strauss and Naomi Quinn – a must-read primer on feminist (cognitive) anthropology – in Assessing Cultural Anthropology, edited by R. Borofsky.
Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire, by Mr. Awesomeness David Graeber – a great one to get excited about the invisible potentialities of anthropology – *also, attach as bonus author’s Prickly Paradigm booklet, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology.*
The Protestant ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by the dusty sociological genius that was Max Weber – assuming you’re sitting in a straight-back chair.
The Division of Labor in Society, by Durkheim – if you are lucky enough to have an entire Winter and a rocking chair.
It is interesting and lovely to see what others have recommended.
