Publisher's Synopsis
Stanley Diamond (1922-1991), anthropologist and poet, was at the forefront of every major critical trend in anthropology during the past 40 years. In all aspects of his work, he opposed social exploitation, tending to the unheard voices of oppressed peoples. His research and analyses of culture in contemporary and past societies examine the dynamics of state formation and the consequences of civilisation for humanity as a whole.;In this two-volume set of essays, scholars consider the dimensions and implications of Diamond's major contribution to critical theory, the concept of dialectical anthropology. Insisting that anthropology must maintain a perspective that is simultaneously interpretive, self-reflective and interdisciplinary, Diamond came to speak for the ways in which anthropology can resist the dehumanising impulses of modern civilisation. In the nuclear age, anything less than social participation, he believed, risks the future of humankind.;The essays in this first volume examine the sources and consequences of the contemporary crisis in Western civilisation. The contributors first explore the imperial representation of the "other" as primitive and the critique of civilisation posed by this "primitive communism". The book then addresses ancient and contemporary cases of ethnocide and ethnogenesis.
