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This book presents a selection of key texts that reflect the broad scope of writings on human behaviour across cultures that are the basis for the modern study of anthropology. Editor Robert Launay reveals how the concerns of contemporary anthropology were first formulated by early thinkers, from observations by Herodotus and Ibn Battuta to the works of Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson. The readings explore the origins and nature of different social systems as well as the origins of inequality and the presumptive rights of Europeans to judge the inherent moral worth of non-Western civilisations.