ABSTRACT
The most substantial criticisms of the ideas in Witchcraft have arisen following various paradigm shifts in anthropology-fundamental changes in the field's basic assumptions and methods-in the years since Evans-Pritchard's death in 1973. As a young anthropologist, Evans-Pritchard had responded with hurt feelings and insecurity to Bronislaw Malinowski's dig at his credibility as a social scientist. On that occasion he allowed himself to be guided by his supervisor Charles Seligman and wrote a contrite and endearingly intellectual apology, reflecting on the methodological difficulty of constructing argument from fact. Christopher Morton reports that Evans-Pritchard's relationship with Malinowski entered a new phase after the younger anthropologist's appointment to the University of Cairo in 1932-possibly thanks to geographical distance. Christopher Morton argues that this was symptomatic of a pedagogical climate of competition and rivalry at the London School of Economics, as anthropologists fought to establish precedence in the rapidly changing field.
