Pars Pro TotoObservation

This essay addresses the suggestion made over a century ago by F. W. Maitland that anthropology must choose between being history and being nothing. At the time Maitland was correct in criticizing the simplistic unilinear evolutionary schemes of Edward Tylor and Lewis Henry Morgan. My own career combines ethnography among Yemeni farmers in the late 1970s with ongoing analysis of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Yemeni agricultural texts, demonstrating the value of drawing on both kinds of research to better understand the history of agriculture in Yemen. Details from the textual corpus are provided to supplement observations made in the field. My approach to agricultural and tax record texts from Yemen's Rasulid period is described as an example of what anthropology and history can contribute to each other. I argue that the choice is not between specific disciplines but rather the application of sound methods that seek to approximate reality rather than dogmatically recreate it. Anthropology and history have much to gain, as Evans-Pritchard once noted, in learning from each other. Anthropology is approached as a research field that has no preconceived borders, but one that necessitates learning from past methodological and theoretical trends, whether from within the formal discipline or from without

Aesthetics · Applied anthropology · Epistemology · Ethnography · Field (mathematics · Historical anthropology · Nothing · Period (music · Sociology · Value (mathematics · African history and culture analysis · Anthropology · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Philosophy

• History

  Open Access•Eric Hirsch, F Stein et al.•Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology•2021

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• An Historian in the Amazon

  Barbara H Rosenwein•History and Anthropology•2015

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• Multiple Histories

  Andre Gingrich•History and Anthropology•2015

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• Comparative Approaches to Visions of Community

  Christina Lutter•History and Anthropology•2015

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• L’Arabie marchande

  Open Access•Éric Vallet•L’Arabie marchande•2010

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• The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology

  Open Access•Franz Boas•Science•1896

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• Rise of Anthropological Theory

  Marvin Harris, Maxine L Margolis•Rise of Anthropological Theory•2001

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• Reading the Past

  Open Access•I Hodder, R Hutson et al.•Reading the Past•2003

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• Sayl andghayl

  Open Access•Daniel Varisco, Daniel Martin Varisco•Human Ecology•1983

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• Medieval Agriculture and Islamic Science

  Sayyid Hamid Hurreiz, Daniel Varisco et al.•Asian Folklore Studies•1996

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• Medieval Agriculture and Islamic Science

  Sema'an I Salem•Speculum•1996

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• A Medieval Note on the Himyarite Dialect

  George Saliba•Journal of the American Oriental…•1985

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• Social Anthropology

  E E Evans-Pritchard, E E Evans‐pritchard•Man•1950

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• Reading against culture in Edward Said'sCulture and Imperialism

  Daniel Varisco, Daniel Martin Varisco•Renaissance and Modern Studies•2004

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• Muslim Studies, Muhammedanische Studien

  Otto Spies, Ignaz Goldziher et al.•Die Welt des Islams•1969

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• Dialectical systems, history and anthropology

  John Comaroff, John L Comaroff•Journal of Southern African Studies•1982

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• Culture and Imperialism

  Andrew J Pierre, Edward Said et al.•Foreign Affairs•1993

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• The End of Anthropology, Again

  Open Access•John Comaroff•American Anthropologist•2010

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• Representing the Colonized

  Edward W Said•Critical Inquiry•1989

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