The contributors to this innovative work re-examine how anthropology might resume its central task of exploring human society through comparison, but under new global conditions and using its newfound critical self-awareness. Individual entries from an international group of anthropologists re-visits, re-theorizes and re-invigorates comparison as a legitimate and fruitful enterprise. The authors explain the valuable elements of anthropological comparison and encourage an international dialogue about comparative research. "Anthropology, by Comparison" is a call to creative reflection on the past and productive action in the present, a challenge to anthropologists to revitalize their unique contribution to human understanding.

Notes on contributors, Foreword: not giving the game away, Acknowledgements, Introduction, PART I Comparison and anthropology's public responsibility, PART II Reinvigorating past comparative methods, PART III New methods of comparison, Index