Book excerpt: In addition to covering the primary centers of production in the United States and Britain, this volume also includes leading anthropologists from a wide range of regions and backgrounds. Combining valuable essays on seminal historical figures, as well as entries on the foremost scholars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, this unique reference offers an important overview of the historical and contemporary reach of anthropological research. With nearly 600 signed entries from a global team of contributors, this comprehensive work is destined to be the definitive reference source for authoritative information on the historical and contemporary key figures in the field.