After Tylor: British Social Anthropology, 1888-1951

After Tylor will take pride of place among histories of British social anthropology. Its scope, its accessibility, and its relevance to the history of anthropology as a whole should bring it many readers. Stocking is attentive to institutional circumstances and developments not only in Great Britain, but also in the United States and Australia and elsewhere. He brings into view as well the life circumstances and personal connections of the actors. Almost anyone, perhaps everyone, will learn something from this book.Dell Hymes, University of Virginia, Charlottesville Original, comprehensive, and eminently readable. George Stocking is the leading authority on the history of both American and British anthropology during this period. Here he contributes importantly to the unravelling and and unfolding story of the relationships among evolutionary, diffusionist, and functional anthropology and anthropologists, arguing that there is considerable continuity from Tylor-the-evolutionist to Radcliffe-Brown-the-structural-functionalist. But he also argues that the story is more complex and open-ended. He reintroduces figures outside the canon, such as those who contributed to the making of paradigms in the study of kinship and religion.Joan Vincent, Columbia University