Lewis Henry Morgan and the Invention of Kinship

Thomas R. Trautmann is a professor of history and anthropology at the University of Michigan. He is the author of several books, including Dravidian Kinship, Aryans and British India, The Aryan Debate, and Languages and Nations: The Dravidian Proof in Colonial Madras.

• IntroductionList of IllustrationsPrefaceAcknowledgments1. Kinship and Its Inventors2. Scale of Mind, Scale of History3. A Lawyer among the Iroquois4. Philology in Its Relations to Ethnology5. Generalizing Iroquois6. Nature and Art7. Conjectural History8. Kinship's Other Inventors9. Of Time and Ethnology10. Contributions to KnowledgeAppendix 1: The Revolution in Ethnological TimeAppendix 2: India and the Study of Kinship TerminologiesAppendix 3: The Whole History of Kinship Terminologies in Three Chapters: Before Morgan, Morgan, and After MorganBibliographyIndex

"Trautmann's study is an important contribution to understanding the inception of modern anthropology and, more generally, to understanding the development of contemporary conceptions of human history and culture."—Martin Ottenheimer, Choice "Morgan's methods and assumptions—especially his emphases on kin terms and on their genealogical referents—have informed all subsequent anthropology down to the present day. . . . [Trautmann] provides a fascinating insight into one of the founding texts on modern anthropology."—Anthony Good, Times Literary Supplement "Trautmann writes elegantly, persuasively, and often wittily, and his book makes fine reading."—C. J. Fuller, Man