ABSTRACT
If you have this text in hand, chances are that you are embarking upon a course in the history of Anthropological Theory, which is likely a required course if you are majoring in anthropology. If my experience in over 20 years of teaching this course is representative, there is a chance that you are anxious about the semester that awaits you. I’d like to begin with a word of reassurance: the large majority of students who enroll in such courses manage to complete them and from there go on to graduate with anthropology degrees. Some go on, despite their initial ambivalence about anthropological theory, to careers in anthropology. And not a few even emerge with a real love of the ideas and debates that have shaped anthropology over the history of our discipline.
