Includes bibliographical references and index.

The Scope of anthropology -- Field methods -- Culture -- How biological evolution occurs -- Biological diversity and race -- The Primates -- Primate behavior and society -- Early hominids -- The Emergence of modern humans -- Cultural evolution and adaptive strategies -- The Origin of food production -- Bands and tribes -- Chiefdoms and nonindustrial states -- The World system, industrialism, and stratification -- Economic systems -- Gender -- Kinship and descent -- Marriage -- Religion -- Personality and worldview -- Language -- Applied anthropology -- Social change and development -- The Future

"Having done a major revision for the fourth edition of anthropology : the exploration of human diversity, I hadn't planed to change much for the fifth edition. However, as I began considering what to revise, I discovered that all the subfields had been changing faster that I had realized."