Matei Candea is a lecturer at the University of Cambridge and a former honorary editor of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He is the author of Corsican Fragments (2010), editor of The Social after Gabriel Tarde (2010) and Schools and Styles of Anthropological Theory (2018).

'This witty, mind-opening and intellectually generous book is a classic in the making. Candea combines a breathtaking sweep of comparative practice and the constantly self-eclipsing waves of anthropological enquiry with a penetrating discernment of the theoretical passions that shape it and how anthropologists distinctively keep them in play. The comparative method will never be the same. It is also a gripping read!' Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge

• Introduction; Part I. Impossibilities: 1. The impossible method; 2. The garden of forking paths; 3. Caesurism and heuristics; Part II. An Archetype: 4. Comparatio; 5. Two ends of lateral comparison: identity and alterity; 6. Another dimension of lateral comparison: identity and intensity; 7. Two ends of frontal comparison: identity, alterity, reflexivity; 8. The oscillations of frontal comparison: identity, intensity, reflexivity; 9. Rigour; Conclusion.

Matei Candea is a lecturer at the University of Cambridge and a former honorary editor of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He is the author of Corsican Fragments (2010), editor of The Social after Gabriel Tarde (2010) and Schools and Styles of Anthropological Theory (2018).

'This witty, mind-opening and intellectually generous book is a classic in the making. Candea combines a breathtaking sweep of comparative practice and the constantly self-eclipsing waves of anthropological enquiry with a penetrating discernment of the theoretical passions that shape it and how anthropologists distinctively keep them in play. The comparative method will never be the same. It is also a gripping read!' Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge

• Introduction; Part I. Impossibilities: 1. The impossible method; 2. The garden of forking paths; 3. Caesurism and heuristics; Part II. An Archetype: 4. Comparatio; 5. Two ends of lateral comparison: identity and alterity; 6. Another dimension of lateral comparison: identity and intensity; 7. Two ends of frontal comparison: identity, alterity, reflexivity; 8. The oscillations of frontal comparison: identity, intensity, reflexivity; 9. Rigour; Conclusion.

Matei Candea is a lecturer at the University of Cambridge and a former honorary editor of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He is the author of Corsican Fragments (2010), editor of The Social after Gabriel Tarde (2010) and Schools and Styles of Anthropological Theory (2018).

'This witty, mind-opening and intellectually generous book is a classic in the making. Candea combines a breathtaking sweep of comparative practice and the constantly self-eclipsing waves of anthropological enquiry with a penetrating discernment of the theoretical passions that shape it and how anthropologists distinctively keep them in play. The comparative method will never be the same. It is also a gripping read!' Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge

• Introduction; Part I. Impossibilities: 1. The impossible method; 2. The garden of forking paths; 3. Caesurism and heuristics; Part II. An Archetype: 4. Comparatio; 5. Two ends of lateral comparison: identity and alterity; 6. Another dimension of lateral comparison: identity and intensity; 7. Two ends of frontal comparison: identity, alterity, reflexivity; 8. The oscillations of frontal comparison: identity, intensity, reflexivity; 9. Rigour; Conclusion.