The history of anthropology has great relevance for current debates within the discipline, offering a foundation from which the professionalisation of anthropology can evolve. The authors explore key issues in the history of social and cultural anthropological approaches in Germany, Great Britain, France, The Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Slovenia and Romania, as well as the influence of Spanish anthropologists in Mexico to provide a comprehensive overview of European anthropological traditions.

Introduction, Han F. Vermeulen, Arturo Alvarez Roldán; Part 1 The origins of anthropology in Europe; Chapter 1 Towards a prehistory of ethnography, Michael Harbsmeier; Chapter 2 Origins and institutionalization of ethnography and ethnology in Europe and the USA, 1771¿1845, Han F. Vermeulen; Chapter 3 Discovering the whole of humankind, Gheorghita Geana; Chapter 4 Enlightenment and Romanticism in the work of Adolf Bastian, Klaus-Peter Koepping; Part 2 Contributions to European anthropology; Chapter 5 Orang Outang and the definition of Man, Alan Barnard; Chapter 6 Beyond evolutionism, Jan J. de Wolf; Chapter 7 Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski and Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, Peter Skalník; Chapter 8 Malinowski and the origins of the ethnographic method, Arturo Alvarez Roldán; Part 3 Anthropological traditions in Europe; Chapter 9 Sweden, Tomas Gerholm; Chapter 10 The anthropological tradition in Slovenia, Zmago Šmitek, Božidar Jezernik; Chapter 11 Ethnography and anthropology, Zbigniew Jasiewicz, David Slattery; Chapter 12 Historical anthropology and the history of anthropology in Germany, Nikola Susanne Bock; Chapter 13 Spanish social anthropologists in Mexico, Enrique Hugo, García Valencia; Chapter 14 A history of paradoxes, Thomas K. Schippers;