Understanding Cultures Perspectives in Anthropology and Social Theory [Paperback]

Understanding Cultures confronts the major theoretical issues involved in cross-cultural interpretation. The book introduces students to rationality among the ancestors of anthropology before proceeding to a wide-ranging evaluation of the Anglo-American rationality debates.

Acknowledgements.

1. Introduction.

2. Anthropological Ancestors and Interpretation Theory: Boas, Malinowski, and Evans-Pritchard.

3. Peter Winch and Ordinary Language Philosophy.

4. The Neo-Popperians and the Logic of One Science: I.C. Jarvie and Robin Horton.

5. Ordinary Language Philosophy in Question: Steven Lukes and Alasdair MacIntyre.

6. Beyond Explanation and Understanding: The Hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur.

7. Hermeneutics and Critical Anthropology: The Synthesis of Practical and Critical Reason.

8. Modernism and Postmodernism in Anthropology.

9. Bounded Cultures – Bounded Selves: The Challenge of Cultural Diasporas.

Notes.

Bibliography.

Index.

Understanding Cultures is an exceptional work of anthropological theory, a book which is simultaneously good to think with, good to teach with, good to write with, good to read with. What makes it so good is not merely Robert Ulin's capacity to engage critically and cogently with a wide array of complex ideas, his willingness to root anthropological discourses deeply in their appropriate philosophical and pistemological ground, or his obvious talent for lucid exposition. It is also the intellectual enthusiasm, and the imagination, which he brings to a difficult task. This new edition, which has been thoughtfully revised and updated, is even better than its excellent predecessor. John Comaroff, University of Chicago &amlc