Post‐truth anthropology

Countless commentators have announced the advent of the post‐truth era, but while everyone seems to be talking about it, there is little agreement about what it really means. This article argues that anthropology can make an important and distinctive contribution to understanding post‐truth by treating it ethnographically. Commonly proposed explanations for post‐truth include changes in political culture, in the structure of information in the digital age and universal cognitive weaknesses that limit people's capacity for critical thought. While all these are likely important factors, they do not account for the role of culture in creating and sustaining post‐truth. In fact, it is likely that culture, especially in the form of metacognition, or thought about thought, plays an important role by providing knowledge practices, techniques for allocating attention, and especially competing theories of truth. Ethnographic methods provide anthropologists with a distinctive window on post‐truth cultures of metacognition.     

The anthropology of modernization and the modernization of anthropology

John J. Poggie, Jr. and Robert N. Lynch, eds. Rethinking Modernization. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1974. xii + 405 pp. Tables, illustrations, maps, figures, bibliography, and index. $15.95.     

The newer anthropology

J. H. M. Beattie and R. G. Lienhardt, eds. Studies in Social Anthropology: Essays in Memory of E. E. Evans‐Pritchard by His Former Oxford Colleagues. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. x + 394 pp. Illustrations, maps, figures, references, bibliography, appendices, and index. $16.00.     

The anthropology of ethnicity

Frances Henry, ed. Ethnicity in the Americas. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1976. vii + 438 pp. Bibliographical notes and index. $22.50.     

The anthropology of Latin America

Dwight B. Heath, ed. Contemporary Cultures and Societies of Latin America: A Reader in the Social Anthropology of Middle and South America [Second ed.]. New York: Random House, 1974. xvii + 572 pp. Charts, tables, figures, and bibliography. $11.95 (cloth).     

Interpretive anthropology

Keith H. Basso and Henry A. Selby, eds. Meaning in Anthropology. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1976. xii + 255 pp. Bibliography, index. $17.50.

Anthony Giddens. New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretive Sociologies. New York: Basic Books. 1976. 192 pp. Bibliography, index. $10.95.     

Demographic anthropology

John F. Marshall and Steven Polgar, eds. Culture, Natality and Family Planning. Chapel Hill: Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, 1976. xiii + 301 pp. Tables.

Bernice A. Kaplan, ed. Anthropological Studies of Human Fertility. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1976. v + 146 pp. $8.95.     

The stubborn persistence of the anthropology of religion

Klass, Morton. Ordered Universes: Approaches to the Anthropology of Religion. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995. xiv + 177 pp. including references and index. $49.95 cloth, $16.95 paper.

Reynolds, Vernon and Ralph Tanner. The Social Ecology of Religion. Oxford University Press, 1995. viii + 322 pp. including index. $39.95 cloth, $17.95 paper.

Holm, Jean and John Bowker, eds. Attitudes to Nature. London: Pinter Publishers, 1994. xii + 172 pp. including index. $45.00 cloth, $16.00 paper.     

Histories of anthropology

Timothy H. H. Thoresen, ed. Toward A Science of Man: Essays in the History of Anthropology. The Hague and Paris: Mouton Publishers, 1975. Distributed in North America by Aldine Publishing Company, vii + 232 pp. Biographical notes and indices. $14.95.     

The Oedipus complex in cultural anthropology today

Spiro, Melford E. Oedipus in the Trobriands. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. xii + 200 pp. including references and index. $8.00 paper.     

The history of cultural anthropology: Two views

Elvin J. Hatch. Theories of Man and Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973. viii + 384 pp. References and index. $12.00.

Paul J. Bohannan and Mark Glazer, eds. High Points in Anthropology. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973. xix + 449 pp. References. $6.95.     

Understanding urban anthropology: A review of anthropology of the city

Edwin Eames and Judith Granich Goode, eds. Anthropology of the City. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice‐Hall, Inc., 1977. 344 pp. Bibliography, indexes. $8.95.     

Making anthropology public

Public Anthropology entails diverse practices. One is 'writing' for the public by making our work more accessible and accountable. A less conventional way of getting anthropological research findings and interpretations to broader publics is through active collaboration with journalists and the media. To make anthropology public is to invite criticism and to face 'erasures' of ownership of our findings once they are shared with journalists. Even so, it is satisfying to see one's work appear on the front pages of the Sunday Times even if uncited. Finally, in the tradition of CW Mills' The Sociological Imagination, the goal of public anthropology is to make public issues, not simply to respond to them. Those who wan to be public anthropologist – just do it! But don't expect to be rewarded for it. Instead, consider it a precious right and a privilege.     

Language in anthropology

William C. McCormack and Stephen A. Wurm, eds. Language and Thought. Anthropological Issues. The Hague, Paris, Mouton Publishers, 1977, 533 pp.