The Teaching of Anthropology, Abridged Edition

The Teaching of Anthropology (Abridged Edition), edited by David G. Mandelbaum, Gabriel W. Lasker, and Ethel M. Albert, is a landmark appraisal of how anthropology should be taught, particularly at the undergraduate level in the United States. Emerging at a moment of expanding enrollments, proliferating subfields, and growing institutional demands, the volume grapples with the central pedagogical challenge of transmitting anthropology’s unique culture of inquiry. Its contributors argue that anthropology’s value lies in its holistic scope, its grounding in field research, and its insistence on viewing human variation through scientific method—qualities that not only illuminate diverse peoples but also provide students with transferable analytic habits for understanding their own world.

The collection ranges across the major subfields—biological, archaeological, linguistic, and cultural/social anthropology—while also treating applied anthropology, graduate training, and the discipline’s broader academic context. Essays emphasize the unity of anthropology through the central concept of culture, advocate for carefully chosen case studies to balance scope with depth, and show how applied and comparative studies can clarify theory. With a focus on practical teaching concerns—curricular sequencing, course design, and coordination within expanding departments—the book demonstrates how anthropology can remain scientifically rigorous, pedagogically compelling, and socially relevant. In presenting both points of consensus and unresolved debates, it provides a foundational guide for instructors, departments, and planners committed to sustaining anthropology’s vitality in higher education.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1963.