Foundations of Anthropological Theory presents a selection of key texts that reflect the broad range of anthropological thought on human behavior, from Herodotus and Ibn Battuta to Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson.

•  Enables the reader to situate the modern discipline of anthropology within the larger context of intellectual history
•  Features key texts from the ancient and medieval worlds through to the Enlightenment
• Considers the presumptive rights of Europeans to judge the inherent moral worth of non-Western civilizations
• Provides fascinating insights into the ways historians, philosophers, missionaries, and even writers of fiction have made valuable contributions to modern anthropological inquiry

Robert Launay is Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University. He is the author of Traders Without Trade: Responses to Change in Two Dyula Communities, Beyond the Stream: Islam and Society in a West African Town, which won the Amaury Talbot Prize, and numerous articles on the anthropology of Islam and Muslim societies in West Africa. He has written extensively on both the contemporary and early history of anthropology, and is completing a new book, Savages, Despots, and Romans: The Urge to Compare and the Origins of Anthropology.