In a series of astute readings, Rosaldo addresses these questions from various angles. Here calls the historical links between the rise of anthropology as an academic discipline and the consolidation and fragmentation of imperialism in the West. Decolonization brought with it new forms of interpretations that had the cumulative effect of redrawing the idea of "objectivity." The "objective" and the "rational" were no longer coterminous with the real, but were rather increasingly seen as rhetorical operations that generated conventions of thinking and acting in the same way that habits cultivate systematic blindness to their contingent nature. Knitting contemporary ethnographic works, including his field notes on the Ilongots, with as elective mix of literacy theory, cognitive psychology, and philosophy, Rosaldo moves deftly between critiques of imperialist nostalgia and liberal humanist ideology characteristic of classical ethnographies. In the final section of the book, he offers a set of alternative ethnographies that include essays on the shifting modalities of Chicano identity gleaned from historically and sexually distinct narratives; the salience of subjectivity in drawing attention to the shifting relations of power between ethnographer and informant; and the irrevocably hybrid nature of contemporary American culture where the resurgence of ethnic identities (and its regressive counter, racism) have made it all the more imperative to see culture" on the border.