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16 Best Anthropology Books

Goal: Find the best Anthropology books according to the internet (not just one person's opinion).

Method:

  1. Search for "best anthropology books" and study the top 5+ pages.
  2. Add only the books mentioned 2+ times.
  3. Rank the results neatly here.

16 Best Anthropology Books

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1

Anthropology

Appreciating Human Diversity

by Conrad Phillip Kottak

2

Cultural Anthropology

Asking Questions About Humanity

by Robert L. Welsch

3

Purity and Danger

An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo

by Mary Douglas

5

Guns, Germs, and Steel

The Fates of Human Societies

by Jared Diamond

6

Debt

The First 5,000 Years

by David Graeber

Also recommended by:

Seth Godin, Mark Manson

7

Almost Human

The Astonishing Tale of Homo Naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story

by Lee Berger

8

Anthropology & the Colonial Encounter

by Talal Asad

9

Beyond Culture

by Edward T. Hall

10

Crazy Like Us

The Globalization of the American Psyche

by Ethan Watters

11

Discipline and Punish

The Birth of the Prison

by Michel Foucault

12

Gods of the Upper Air

How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century

by Charles King

13

How to Read Ethnography

by Paloma Gay y Blasco

14

Imagined Communities

Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism

by Benedict Anderson

15

Language, Culture, and Society

An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology

by James Stanlaw

16

The Unfolding of Language

An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention

by Guy Deutscher

Sources

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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