Overview

History of Anthropology is a series of annual volumes, each of which treats an important theme in the history of anthropological inquiry. For this initial volume, the editors have chosen to focus on the modern cultural anthropology: intensive fieldwork by “participant observation.” Observers Observed includes essays by a distinguished group of historians and anthropologists covering major episodes in the history of ethnographic fieldwork in the American, British, and French traditions since 1880. As the first work to investigate the development of modern fieldwork in a serious historical way, this collection will be of great interest and value to anthropologist, historians of science and the social sciences, and the general readers interested in the way in which modern anthropologists have perceived and described the cultures of “others.”

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9780299094546

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Reviews

This first volume focuses on ethnographic fieldwork, a keystone of cultural anthropology that is at once a unique means of collecting data (participant observation is often spoken of as an 'anthropological' method) and a crucial rite of passage that transforms novices into professionals. . . . The collection as a whole is of high quality, presenting valuable information and provocative analyses. For an anthropologist, the essays by historians offer fresh perspectives that differentiate this book from others on fieldwork. If this volume is a augury of things to come, HOA promises to be a significant contribution to anthropological and historical literature. -- American Scientist

Author Information

George W. Stocking, Jr., editor of this volume, is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Morris Fishbein Center for the Study of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Chicago. Since the appearance of his Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology in 1968, he has been the author of numerous articles and reviews in this field, and has edited three other books, including The Shaping of American Anthropology, 1883-1911: A Franz Boas Reader. His recent research has concentrated on the development of modern British social anthropology.

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