Social anthropology was at the forefront of debates about culture, society, and economic development in the British Empire. This book explores the discipline's rise in the interwar period, crisis amid decolonization, and ironic reemergence in the postwar metropole. Across the humanities and social sciences, activists and scholars used anthropological concepts forged in empire to rethink British society at midcentury. Participant Observers shows how colonial anthropology helped define the social imagination of postimperial Britain. Part institutional history of the discipline's formation, part cultural history of its impact, this is the first account of social anthropology's pivotal role in Britain's intellectual culture.

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Winner of the 2024 Constance Blackwell Prize awarded by the International Society For Intellectual History

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Buy Participant Observers here:

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 UC Press online (US)

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Bookshop.org (UK)

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Listen to an interview about the book hosted by Professor Alex Golub on New Books Network below

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