Anthropology: Appreciating Human Diversity

Focused on the appreciation of anthropology, the new edition of Anthropology: Appreciating Human Diversity offers an up-to-date holistic introduction to general anthropology from the four-field perspective. Key themes of appreciating the experiences students bring to the classroom, appreciating human diversity, and appreciating the field of anthropology are showcased throughout the text. In this edition, Understanding Ourselves chapter openers and Through the Eyes of Others boxes show how anthropology helps us understand ourselves. New Appreciating Diversity boxes focus on the various forms of human biological and cultural diversity. Appreciating Anthropology boxes are also new to the text and focus on the value and usefulness of anthropological research and approaches.

Conrad Phillip Kottak (A.B. Columbia, 1963; Ph.D. Columbia, 1966) is the Julian H. Steward Collegiate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, where he has taught since 1968. He served as Anthropology Department chair from 1996 to 2006. In 1991 he was honored for his teaching by the University and the state of Michigan. In 1992 he received an excellence in teaching award from the College of Literature, Sciences, and the Arts of the University of Michigan. In 1999 the America Anthropological Association awarded Professor Kottak the AAA/Mayfield Award for Excellence in the Undergraduate Teaching of Anthropology.

Professor Kottak has done ethnographic fieldwork in cultural anthropology in Brazil (since 1962), Madagascar (since 1966), and the United States. Conrad Kottak's articles have appeared in academic journals including American Anthropologist, Journal of Anthropological Research, American Ethnologist, Ethnology, Human Organization, and Luso-Brazilian Review. He has also written for more popular journals, including Transaction/SOCIETY, Natural History, Psychology Today, and General Anthropology.

In recent research projects, Kottak and his colleagues have investigated the emergence of ecological awareness in Brazil, the social context of deforestation in Madagascar, and popular participation in economic development planning in northeastern Brazil.

Recently, Kottak was inducted to The National Academy of Sciences. This is a private organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare.