Window on Humanity: A Concise Introduction to Anthropology, 2/e
Conrad Kottak,
University of Michigan
ISBN: 0073530913 Copyright year: 2007
Book Preface
Window on Humanity is intended to provide a concise, relatively low-cost
introduction to general (four-field) anthropology. The combination of
shorter length and lower cost increases the instructor’s options for assigning
additional reading—case studies, readers, and other supplements—in a semester
course. Window may also work well in a quarter system, since traditional
anthropology texts may be too long for a one-quarter course.
Since 1968, I’ve regularly taught Anthropology 101 (Introduction to
Anthropology) to a class of 375 to 550 students. I continue to believe that
effective textbooks are rooted in enthusiasm for and enjoyment of one’s own
teaching experience.
As a college student, I was drawn to anthropology by its breadth and because
of what it could tell me about the human condition, present and past.
Since then, I’ve been fortunate in spending my teaching career at a university
(the University of Michigan) that values and unites anthropology’s four
subdisciplines. I have daily contact with members of all the subfields, and as
a teacher of the four-field introductory anthropology course, I’m happy to
keep up with those subfields.
I believe that anthropology has compiled an
impressive body of knowledge about human diversity in time and space,
and I’m eager to introduce that knowledge in the pages that follow. I believe
strongly in anthropology’s capacity to enlighten and inform. Anthropology’s
subject matter is intrinsically fascinating, and its focus on diversity helps
students understand and interact with their fellow human beings in an increasingly
interconnected world and an increasingly diverse North America.
I decided to write my first textbook back in 1972, when there were far
fewer introductory anthropology texts than there are today. The texts back
then tended to be overly encyclopedic. I found them too long and too unfocused
for my course and my image of contemporary anthropology. The
field of anthropology was changing rapidly. Anthropologists were writing
about a “new archaeology” and a “new ethnography.”
Fresh fossil finds and
biochemical studies were challenging our understanding of human and
primate evolution. Studies of monkeys and apes in their natural settings
were contradicting conclusions based on work in zoos. Studies of language
as it actually is used in society were revolutionizing overly formal and static
linguistic models. In cultural anthropology, symbolic and interpretive
approaches were joining ecological and materialist ones.
Today there are new issues and approaches, such as molecular anthropology
and new forms of spatial and historical analysis. The fossil and
archaeological records expand every day. Profound changes have affected
the people and societies ethnographers traditionally have studied. In cultural
anthropology it’s increasingly difficult to know when to write in the
present and when to write in the past tense.
Anthropology hasn’t lost its excitement. Yet many texts ignore change—except maybe with a chapter tacked on at the end—and write as though anthropology and the people it
studies were the same as they were a generation ago. While any competent
anthropology text must present anthropology’s core, it also should demonstrate
anthropology’s relevance to today’s world. Window on Humanity has a
specific set of goals.
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2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education