Post–Cold War Anthropology as Ideological Blog

Abstract

This essay examines the anthropology of Russia and Eastern Europe two decades after the end of the Cold War. It discusses how the ideology and political pressures of that era continue to influence and distort the discipline, hindering social science advances in the comparative study of empires and the development of cultures and social systems. The essay reviews a representative book in the field and uses it as a take-off point for examining the politicization and stagnation (or disintegration) of a discipline, which should be both a comparative and predictive science as well as a “humanities” subject that answers basic questions about how to improve human societies and define “development” and “progress.” This review also offers a set of guidelines on how anthropology can be improved to refocus on meeting human intellectual and social aspirations.