Routledge Library Editions Social And Cultural Anthropology

RLE Social and Cultural Anthropology brings together a collection of key titles from a range of historic imprints. From Anthropology and Nursing to Everyday Life, from The Gift Economy to Two-Dimensional Man, they form an essential reference source from a selection of acclaimed international authors.

Written by leading scholars in the field, this comprehensive and readable resource gives anthropology students a unique guide to the ideas, arguments and history of the discipline. Combining anthropological theory and ethnography, it includes 275 substantial entries, over 300 short biographies of important figures in anthropology, and nearly 600 glossary items. The fully revised and expanded second edition reflects major changes in anthropology in the past decade.

Social Anthropology developed in Britain after the first world war as a separate and highly distinctive discipline. For thirty years social anthropology was almost exclusively a British speciality but after the second world war this pattern was broken with American social anthropologists growing more numerous and influential. Reprinting key volumes from the Association of Social Anthropologists (and others) this set brings together works by distinguished authors and covers a range of issues including the study of political systems, religion, and the utilization of models and of complex societies.

This volume illustrates how much the study of social anthropologists has encompassed other, non-primitive societies: rural Italy, urban Africa, village politics in India and the smaller ex-colonial territories of Fiji and Mauritius are just some of the areas covered by the book. The position and contribution of British community studies is also examined, illustrating how micro-sociology can be made relevant to macro-sociology. Originally published 1966.

The first part of this book considers what kind of study social anthropology is, the types of questions social anthropologists ask and how they go about obtaining the answers. The second part discusses the more important fields in which social anthropologists have advanced our knowledge of other cultures: kinship and marriage, social order, economic relations and magical and religious institutions. The important theme of social change is also discussed. First published in 1964.

Social Anthropology explains and illustrates the methods of modern anthropology, tracing its development from pre-nineteenth-century philosophical speculations and the empirical work of explorers, missionaries and colonial servants, up to the second half of the twentieth century. First published in 1951.

Until recently we have known more about gift giving practices in pre-industrial societies than about those of industrial western society. In this book, first published in 1988, David Cheal shows that the process of present giving and receiving is a vital element in contemporary social life, relevant to some of the most important theoretical traditions in sociology, particularly those of Durkheim and Weber, and to the social constructionism of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann. This volume is the result of a major study of gift rituals carried out by David Cheal and his associates in which general themes are richly illustrated with details from individual case histories gathered during the research. It is highly significant that in western society women are more active gift givers than men and, while their voices explain how emotions and interests are interrelated within the gift economy, the author shows how that in turn is related to current theories about family, gender and religion.