Fredrik Barth is one of the towering figures of twentieth-century anthropology. This intellectual history traces the development of Barth's ideas and explores the substance of his contributions. In an accessible style, Thomas Hylland Eriksen's biographical study reveals the magic of ethnography to professional anthropologists and non-practitioners alike. Exploring his six decade career, it follows Barth from early ecological studies in Pakistan, to political studies in Iran, to groundbreaking fieldwork in Norway, New Guinea, Bali and Bhutan. Eriksen argues that Barth's voracious appetite for fieldwork holds the key to understanding his remarkable intellectual development and the insights it produced. The book raises many of the same questions that emerge from Barth's own work - of unity and diversity, of culture and relativism, of art and science.

List of Illustrations Series Preface Preface Part I: A Man of Action 1. Watching and Wandering 2. The Power and the Glory 3. Nomadic Freedom 4. Entrepreneurship 5. The Global Theorist 6. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries Part II: An Anthropology of Knowledge 7. Baktaman Vibrations 8. A New Kind of Complexity 9. Turbulent Times 10. Cultural Complexity 11. The Guru and the Conjurer 12. Between Art and Science Notes List of Works by Fredrik Barth Listof Other References Index