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Alfred Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955) is widely renowned as a founder of modern social anthropology. This biography challenges popular stereotypes of him as a misplaced positivist and colonial conservative. It shows Radcliffe-Brown to be a thoroughly cosmopolitan scholar, a committed fieldworker and a sharp critic of colonialism. Radcliffe-Brown engaged strategically with colonial authorities to further the interests of his discipline and invoked scientific credentials to critique central aspects of colonial rule. His struggle for intellectual autonomy and advocacy of a comparative sociological approach speaks to many contemporary concerns.
“I found this book absolutely outstanding. It is admirable in its commitment to what must have been a decade-long process of research and writing and refreshing in its methodological quest for scholarly rigour.” • Andrew Bank, University of the Western Cape
Isak Niehaus teaches social anthropology at Brunel University London. He has previously published Witchcraft, Power and Politics (Pluto Press, 2001), Witchcraft and a Life in the New South Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and AIDS in the Shadow of Biomedicine (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018).
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. The Makings of an Aristocratic Anarchist, 1881-1905
Chapter 2. Fieldwork in the Andamans and Western Australia, 1906-1912
Chapter 3. Writing Anthropology from the Margins, 1912-1919
Chapter 4. Marketing Anthropology in South Africa, 1919-1925
Chapter 5. A Bohemian in Sydney, 1926-1931
Chapter 6. Debates in Chicago, 1931-1936
Chapter 7. Oxford in Wartime, 1937-1945
Chapter 9. A Restless Retirement, 1946-1955
Conclusion
Appendices
References
Index