Alfred Cort Haddon A Very English Savage

An innovative account of one of the least-understood characters in the history of anthropology.


Using previously overlooked, primary sources Ciarán Walsh argues that Haddon, the grandson of anti-slavery activists, set out to revolutionize anthropology in the 1890s in association with a network of anarcho-utopian activists and philosophers. He regards most of what has been written about Haddon in the past as a form of disciplinary folklore shaped by a theory of scientific revolutions.


The main action takes place in Ireland, where Haddon adopted the persona of a very English savage in a new form of performed photo-ethnography that constituted a singularly modernist achievement in anthropology.


From the Introduction:


Alfred Cort Haddon was written out of the story of anthropology for the same reasons that make him interesting today. He was passionately committed to the protection of simpler societies and their civilisations from colonists and their supporters in parliament and the armed forces.

About the author

Ciarán Walsh works as a freelance curator and writer. In 2009, he curated an internationally acclaimed exhibition of photography by John Millington Synge which brought the photography of Alfred Cort Haddon into focus.

Product details

• Authors: Ciaran Walsh, Ciarán Walsh, Ciaran Walsh Walsh, Iaránwalsh
• Publisher: BERGHAHN BOOKS, INC
• Content: Book
• Product form: Hardback
• Publication date: 01.09.2023
• Subject: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries
• EAN: 9781800739826
• ISBN: 978-1-80073-982-6
• Pages: 306
• Series: Anthropology's Ancestors
• Subjects: Biography: general, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Social and cultural anthropology, Biography: philosophy and social sciences, General studies, Theory and Methodology, Anthropology (General); Theory and Methodology, History of scholarship (principally of social sciences and humanities)