This page now has two sections. The first is a list of some anthropology-related readings that might be of interest to non-anthropologists. The second is the bibliography of works cited in the anthropology section of the web site. Since the first section is intended for a more general audience, I've adopted a slightly different format for listing the works than I do elsewhere.
Various anthropology readings
Social and cultural anthropology: a very short introduction, by John Monaghan and Peter Just. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
This is, as the sub-title tells you, "a very short introduction." The book, the size of a paperback, is all of 160 pages, including Further Reading and index. But it's a very
informative and useful 160 pages. Drawing on their own fieldwork for examples (as we tend to do) the authors cover the basics that someone who might be interested in anthropology would want to know.
It includes sections on current debates, key terms and ideas, theories, historical issues, major anthropologists, and so on. Chapter Two, for example, talks about culture. This includes
how anthropologists have traditionally viewed culture, why we are interested in it and ways it is looked at now. It also covers the concept of "cultural relativism," a starting point
for how social and cultural anthropologists view the world, as well as providing a list of significant ethnographies. Best of all, the book, which is part of a series, lists for all of $9.95.
The Innocent Anthropologist : Notes from a Mud Hut, by Nigel Barley. Waveland Press, 2000.
A classic. It's actually been years since I've read this (the 2000 date is a reprint), but it does a wonderful job of giving you a feel for anthropology as it's really done. I wouldn't be surprised if many anthropoligsts didn't like the book. It's humorous, and we have a tendency to take ourselves too seriously. What Barley does that makes this book so useful and interesting - besides writing well! - is he cuts through the academic prose to give you an insider's view of what fieldwork can actually be like. It's not a serious academic work - it's light reading - yet it makes some good points. It has, I am sure, exaggerations galore, but ones that speak to larger issues. I should really go back and re-read this, especially as I don't recall his attitude towards the people he works with. (Hopefully it's okay, since I'm recommending him here.) He has another book also worth reading - Not a hazardous sport - that's apparently unfortunately out of print. (The title, as I recall, deals with the insurance company's evaluation of fieldwork, when Barely inquires as to whether or not he's covered in the field.)
Clifford, James and George Marcus, eds. 1986. Writing culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
A now-classic raising various questions on doing anthropological research and writing about it.
Eco, Umberto. 1990. The limits of interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
On whether we can definitively know what an author intended.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.
A classic. Among other things, lays out an argument for interpretative anthropology, which probably underpins to some degree most social / cultural anthropology done today.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1988. The logic of the social sciences. S.W. Nicholsen and J.A. Stark, trans. Cambridge: Polity Press.
On explanation in the social sciences.
Little, Daniel. 1991. Varieties of social explanation. Boulder: Westview Press.
A much more technical book, looking at various theoretical issues surrounding explanation of social events, etc.
Ricoeur, Paul. 1981. Hermeneutics and the human sciences. J.B. Thomson, trans. New York: Cambridge University Press.
French philosophy and social theory. Includes an article on action as text.