The increasing tendency to abstract some anthropological or sociological finding from its context, and to flourish it around as if it was possessed of some intrinsic value
The translator’s difficulty signals a large change in customary consciousness
uncritical deference, at the level of theory, to quantities … the mumbo-jumbo of those latter-day astrologers who stem from Conjuror Bentham
When shopping so extensively among the Azande, he might have placed one or two orders nearer home
A University is not born when the Privy Council grants it a charter; it is born when its members come to realize that they have common interests and a common identity
anthropology, sociology, and criminology, have evolved either as unhistorical disciplines, or with an inadequate historical component, or with an actively anti-historical bias
the inadequacy of the thought betrays itself … in a most uncharacteristic cliché
once a class dimension is introduced, the problem of intellectual reputability assumes a different form
One nods contentedly over the argument, re-assured by anthropological footnotes, until one recalls that Ben Jonson – if he had seen that passage –