<DIV></DIV> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>In <I>Photography and Anthropology, </I>Christopher Pinney presents a provocative and readable account of the strikingly parallel histories of the two disciplines, as well as a polemical narrative and overview of the use of photography by anthropologists from the 1840s to the present. Walter Benjamin suggested that photography “make[s] the difference between technology and magic visible as a thoroughly historical variable,” and Pinney here explores photography as a divinatory practice that prompted anthropologists to capture the “primitive” lives of those they studied.</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal> </P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Early anthropology celebrated photography as a physical record, whose authority and permanence promised an escape from the lack of certainty in speech. But later anthropologists faulted photography for failing to capture movement and process. Anthropology as a practice of “being there” has thus found itself entwined in an intimate engagement with photography as metaphor for the collection of evidence.</P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal> </P> <P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Through numerous examples from the annals of anthropological photography, <I>Photography and Anthropology</I> examines the history of anthropology's enchantment with photography alongside the anthropological theory of photography and documentation.<BR></P>