ABSTRACT
Arjun Appadurai’s Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization challenges the methods that American anthropologists were using at the time of writing. The German American scholar Franz Boas is widely credited with being the father of American anthropology. Appadurai suggests that anthropology must develop new theories and methods to account for global cultural flows and how these flows affect particular places. Although Appadurai is writing with an audience of anthropologists in mind, his work draws mostly upon scholars outside the field of anthropology. Some anthropologists, like Appadurai, were influenced by the theories of the German political philosopher and economist Karl Marx, who argued that the conflict inherent in economic systems was the major force behind historical change. Appadurai added that inequality and power are complicated by disjuncture in global cultural flows and the work of the social imagination. Among anthropologists, Appadurai is known for advancing the importance of the study of global dimensions of culture.
