In the introduction to this eighth volume of the Histories of Anthropology Annual series, the editors emphasize that it is not the goal of this series to provide thematically coherent volumes, but that this particular example “integrates fairly easily around how anthropologists’ careers have intersected across different professional generations and allowed them to navigate national boundaries and national traditions” (ix). I beg to disagree with this assessment—national borders and specific national anthropological histories are a feature of only a few of the articles compiled here. Instead, the articles in this book can be roughly divided into two groups—the first five largely probe overlooked events and figures from the early twentieth century in the context of their significance for the emerging meaning and politics of anthropology, mostly involving uncovered archival materials, while the next four offer a reexamination of central anthropological thinkers in light of new perspectives or applications.
The most...
