ABSTRACT
Psychological Anthropology for the 21st Century is the first comprehensive text to encapsulate both the early history and the contemporary state of the subdiscipline. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book opens with a chronological list of major figures and publications. It begins with thepsychological interests in anthropology from the 1800s to the 1920s. The book covers the famous culture-and-personality school from the 1920s to the 1940s. It continues that examination for the period from 1945 to the 1970s, when participants took stock of a half-century of work, even as the school was losing momentum. The book surveys the "cognitive turn" in anthropology in reaction to the older approach, including ethnoscience or cognitive anthropology and Levi-Strauss's structuralism as well as Leslie White's concurrent rejection of psychology in favor of "culturology." It brings us up-to-date with presentations on symbolism, practice, and embodiment.
