Celebrating a Century of the American Anthropological Association ― Presidential Portraits

During the past century the American Anthropological Association (AAA) has borne witness to profound social, cultural, and technical changes, transformations that have affected anthropologists and the people they work with across the planet. In response to such global changes, anthropology continues to evolve into an increasingly complex and sophisticated discipline with a dynamic range of flourishing subfields.

This volume contains the memorable stories of the seventy-seven men and women who have led the AAA during the past century. The list of the association's presidents reads like a roster of influential scholars from various specializations within anthropology. Their histories cumulatively reflect the trends in interpretive thought and fieldwork methodology that have emerged during the past ten decades.

For each president the book provides a photograph and a biography replete with personal anecdotes, career highlights, and information about his or her contributions to the development of the discipline of anthropology. Important works by each president are listed separately in the back of the volume. An introduction by Regna Darnell and Frederic W. Gleach summarizes the first century of the AAA and contextualizes the individual stories.

Regna Darnell is a professor of anthropology at the University of Western Ontario. She is the author ofAnd Along Came Boas: Continuity and Revolution in Americanist Anthropology andInvisible Genealogies: A History of Americanist Anthropology (Nebraska 2001).

Frederic W. Gleach is a historical anthropologist and a visiting scholar at Cornell University. He is the author ofPowhatan's World and Colonial Virginia: A Conflict of Cultures (Nebraska 1997).