Anthropophagy

Darling, Charles W. (Charles William), 1830-1905Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 74K words
Chapters: 8

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Anthropophagy by Charles W. DarlingAuthor: Darling, Charles W. (Charles William), 1830-1905,Language: English, Class: GN: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation: Anthropology, Release Date: Nov 15, 2017

Editor's review

This book centers on "anthropophagy" as a topic in anthropology and ethnography, and belongs to the specialized early anthropological literature discussing related customs and records. Its value lies in showing how nineteenth-century scholars collected, organized, and interpreted materials on extreme cross-cultural customs, offering today's researchers a window into the discipline's early methodology and discursive style. The ethnographic accounts and classificatory frameworks in the book bear clear period limitations; readers need to assess them within the history of anthropology, recognizing both their documentary value and their biases and assumptions. It is best read as an object of disciplinary history and source criticism rather than as a reliable description of any particular group. For readers interested in the history of anthropology, colonial-era knowledge production, and ethnographic writing traditions, this book provides a concrete textual sample suitable for comparative reading, discussion, and reflection in courses or specialized research.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Students of anthropology and ethnology and scholars studying the discipline's history
Cultural researchers concerned with colonial-era knowledge production and ethnographic writing
University instructors who need primary early anthropological texts for course discussion
Advanced readers interested in the history of accounts of other cultures and methods of source criticism

Not a good fit for

General readers seeking sensational stories for entertainment
Beginners without anthropological grounding who might mistake early accounts for fact
Readers who are uncomfortable with the topic of cannibalism and unwilling to read related material

Reading tips

First understand the basic paradigms of nineteenth-century anthropology, then read the original to identify its period assumptions.
Mark sources of material and inferential passages as you read, distinguishing ethnographic accounts from the author's interpretations.
Read alongside contemporary reflexive studies of similar topics to develop a critical perspective.
Use topical notes to organize the book's classificatory frameworks for discussing the evolution of disciplinary methodology.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can the ethnographic accounts in this book be quoted directly as fact?

Direct quotation as fact is not advisable. This is early anthropological literature; the sources and chains of transmission are often unclear and carry the biases and imaginative elements of the time. A safer approach is to treat it as material for disciplinary history, explaining its documentary nature and historical context when citing it, and cross-referencing it with later field-tested research.

Can someone without an anthropology background understand this book?

It can be read, but with support. The book involves many early terms and classificatory frameworks, and without background one may mistake the author's interpretations for settled conclusions. It is advisable to first read introductory material on the history of anthropology or ethnographic methods to understand the nineteenth-century disciplinary context, then approach the original while continuing to question the sources of the material.

Is this book suitable for classroom teaching?

It is suitable as discussion material for disciplinary history and source criticism, but not as a knowledge primer introducing a particular culture. Instructors can select excerpts and pair them with contemporary reflexive research, guiding students to analyze the writing style, material limitations, and discursive stance of early ethnography, thereby training critical reading skills.

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About the author

Darling, Charles W. (Charles William), 1830-1905 Author

Charles W. Darling (1830–1905) was a nineteenth-century author whose life and nationality are poorly documented in publicly available sources, making a full biographical sketch difficult to establish. Only one of his works is held in this collection, Anthropophagy, a title that points to the human practice of cannibalism. Judging from the subject, the book belongs to anthropological or ethnographic recording rather than fiction. Such topics were not uncommon in nineteenth-century natural history and ethnographic writing, where authors often compiled travel accounts, missionary reports, and colonial observations to satisfy contemporary curiosity about exotic customs. Darling's work likely follows this pattern, emphasizing the collection of material and description of phenomena in a documentary, enumerative style. Because the original book circulated narrowly and scholarly discussion of it is scarce, its specific sources and academic influence remain to be verified.