The Discipline of Anthropology
Anthropology is the most holistic of the social sciences; it takes the entire range of human diversity as its field of study. As the world becomes more complexly interconnected, our need to understand the operation of human diversity and human similarities becomes all the more pressing. Anthropology entails the rigorous study--across the entire range of global and historical variation--of the forces that have shaped our ways of thinking and acting, how we represent ourselves, and our very physiology. The discipline is increasingly mindful of the inequities that people have been heir to and how these are perpetuated or reestablished in the present. To immerse oneself in anthropology as a field of study is challenging. We believe it is one of the most important endeavors in the world today.