In The Value of Comparison Peter van der Veer makes a compelling case for using comparative approaches in the study of society and for the need to resist the simplified civilization narratives popular in public discourse and some social theory. He takes the quantitative social sciences and the broad social theories they rely on to task for their inability to question Western cultural presuppositions, demonstrating that anthropology's comparative approach provides a better means to understand societies. This capacity stems from anthropology's engagement with diversity, its fragmentary approach to studying social life, and its ability to translate difference between cultures. Through essays on topics as varied as iconoclasm, urban poverty, Muslim immigration, and social exclusion van der Veer highlights the ways that studying the particular and the unique allows for gaining a deeper knowledge of the whole without resorting to simple generalizations that elide and marginalize difference.
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The Value of Comparison
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Information
Publisher
Duke University Press BooksYear
2016Print ISBN
9780822361589
9780822361398
eBook ISBN
9780822374220
Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- Foreword by Thomas Gibson
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I. The Fragment and the Whole
- Part II. Civilization and Comparison
- Part III. Comparing Exclusion
- A Short Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
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Yes, you can access The Value of Comparison by Peter van der Veer in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Asian History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.