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Argonauts of the Western Pacific

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( 1,466 ratings, 59 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Bronislaw Malinowski offers a detailed study of exchange practices in the Melanesian islands and serves as a foundational text in modern anthropology. The book emphasises understanding the native perspective, vividly describing Kula life—from canoe building and fishing expeditions to the significance of myth and magic. It examines an inter-island exchange system central to community life, revealing a culture now largely lost.
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Format: Hardback
$24700
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for students and scholars of anthropology and sociology, as well as readers interested in ethnography and the cultures of the Pacific Islands.

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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Bronislaw Malinowski’s pathbreaking Argonauts of the Western Pacific is at once a detailed account of exchange in the Melanesian islands and a manifesto of a modernist anthropology. Malinowski argued that the goal of which the ethnographer should never lose sight is to ‘grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world.’

Through vivid evocations of Kula life, including the building and launching of canoes, fishing expeditions, and the role of myth and magic amongst the Kula people, Malinowski brilliantly describes an inter-island system of exchange—from gifts from father to son to swapping fish for yams—around which an entire community revolves.

A classic of anthropology that did much to establish the primacy of painstaking fieldwork over the earlier anecdotal reports of travel writers, journalists, and missionaries, it is a compelling insight into a world now largely lost from view.

With a new foreword by Adam Kuper.

Series: Routledge Classics

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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

'No writer of our times has done more than Bronislaw Malinowski to bring together in single comprehension the warm reality of human living and the cool abstractions of science.' - Robert Redfield

'A contribution of the first rank to anthropological and sociological literature.' - Economica

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781138132719

Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 12 October 2015

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Routledge

Audience: Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Width: 156.0mm

Height: 234.0mm

Weight: 453g

Pages: 542

About the Author

Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), author of Argnonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) is still regarded as a pioneer anthropologist. Lecturing in both the UK and USA before and after the outbreak of the Second World War, he established himself as one of the most important anthropologists of the twentieth century.

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