Cross-Cultural Research Methods - Softcover

Carol R. Ember is executive director of the Human Relations Area Files at Yale University. Melvin Ember is president of the Human Relations Area Files at Yale University. They have co-authored numerous books, including the Choice Outstanding Academic Title award-winning first edition of Cross-Cultural Research Methods and the textbooks Anthropology and Cultural Anthropology, both in their twelfth edition.

After outlining the advantages and disadvantages of different types of comparisons, [the authors] lead the reader through the process of cross-cultural research from developing a hypothesis to sampling, measuring, coding, and analyzing the data. (A. Funderburg Methodology and Research Technology)

The book's merits are easy to catalog: It is a detailed and comprehensive review of some important aspects of comparative studies in anthropology; it has been written from a well-informed ethnographic and mathematical background; and there is no inclination to gloss over the uncertainties and shortcomings of the comparative approach. Well-organized, clear, and concise with a number of appropriate examples illustrating the major points, this book deserves a wide reading simply because the cross-cultural comparison is the only method we have for attacking an important class of anthropological problems. (T.A. Foor, (University of Montana) CHOICE)