It takes a brave soul to frame a contemporary collection of anthropological work as “the anthropology of Britain” (or anywhere else), a phrase that echoes perilously the cold war language of area studies. Nigel Rapport, editor of this anthology of articles on contemporary Britain, makes a claim for this title, arguing that “this is a book which makes Britain primary in anthropological terms and does not see the need always to legitimize itself by drawing comparisons between Britain and ‘other cultures’; nor does it feel that its lack of formal ‘exoticism’ required special pleading” (p. 5). By framing this collection with this rather defensive introduction, however, Rapport risks undermining the value of his own enterprise, suggesting that something really is slightly suspect about an anthropology of the very place that was arguably the metropolitan birthplace of the discipline itself. He makes the case somewhat worse by going on to claim that “anthropology in Britain has the potential, I contend … of providing some of the best that the discipline can offer because an anthropologist thoroughly at home in linguistic denotation, and familiar with behavioural form, is more able to appreciate the connotative” (p. 7). This same assertion might be made about the anthropology of the United States or about any other place where anthropologists turn the lens back on their own societies. Why should Britain be the exceptional case?

The answer has more to do with the institutionalization of anthropology in Britain than it does with any larger theoretical or methodological issues. Much of the work in this book, however, represents not just “the best of British,” as Anthony Cohen (who has mentored many of the anthropologists featured in the book, including Rapport) writes in his epilogue; these scholars also represent some of the best of anthropology anywhere, and for that reason alone, their work deserves a wide readership.

The book is organized into five thematic sections, each preceded by a commentary by Rapport. The articles address a wide range of topics, including the royal family (Anne Rowbottom), the London ballet (Helena Wulff), the postindustrial landscape of a former mining village (Andrew Dawson), British Quakers (Peter Collins), and Rapport’s own literarily inflected work on the worldview from a British village. An excellent article by Jeanette Edwards on everyday understandings of science is based on her interviews with women about childbirth and new reproductive technologies. Sarah Green provides an imaginative discussion of the relationship between cybernetworks and face-to-face networks, demonstrating that the virtual is far more like the “real” than many proponents of new communication technologies might recognize. And Alison James, a pioneer in the growing field of the anthropology of childhood, contributes a chapter in which she considers how the discourse around parenting is reflected in children’s own views of socialization.

Many of the chapters deal implicitly with questions of national identity, and two chapters deal explicitly with ethnicity: Carol Trosset and Douglas Caulkins provide an interesting methodological chapter on ethnic identity and values among the Welsh, and Vered Amit applies theoretical insights on diasporas to her study of Armenians in London. But, although these articles and many others offer implicit insights into the project of nation-building in contemporary Britain, it is with respect to this particular (and critical) domain that the book falls somewhat short.

One of the most fascinating and theoretically rich areas of research into Britain has been the examination of its transformation into a multicultural society, particularly in the context of contemporary Europe. The incorporation of Britain into the European Union, steady rates of immigration from Britain’s once-colonial outposts, and even the threat of Scottish and Welsh autonomy have contributed to a sense that “Englishness” and “Britishness” have both become more diffuse, more difficult to define, more fractured and possibly less meaningful in everyday life. Indeed, a report of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, commissioned by an independent think tank called the Runnymeade Trust, provoked a heated debate a few years ago on how racially and ethnically inclusive terms like English and British really are at the present time.

Although the work of such seminal thinkers in critical race theory as Paul Gilroy and Stuart Hall is cited in several of the pieces, as a whole the collection reflects a view of Britain as largely white, tranquil, and middle class. In fact, the highly flammable solvent of Margaret Thatcher’s radical neoliberal policies of the 1980s (which have mostly continued under subsequent governments), once poured over British society resulted in an explosion of racial and class conflagrations in a number of cities. That analysis of much of this drama is missing from the collection somewhat weakens the case for its representativeness as an anthropology of contemporary Britain; the editor also missed the opportunity to include some of the most theoretically challenging work on race and nation-building available today. As an anthology of interesting and engaging work in contemporary anthropology, however, the collection stands firmly on its own merits and needs no other justification. It should find an enthusiastic audience on both sides of the Atlantic.