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The article reviews the book "Commons and Borderlands: Working Papers on Interdisciplinarity, Accountability and the Flow of Knowledge," by Marilyn Strathern.

The article reviews the book "Engaged Anthropology: Research Essays on North American Archaeology, Ethnobotany, and Museology, Papers in Honor of Richard I. Ford," edited by Michelle Hegmon and B. Sunday Eiselt.

The article reviews the book "Unwrapping the Sacred Bundle: Reflections on the Disciplining of Anthropology," edited by Daniel A. Segal and Sylvia J. Yanagisako.

Edward Tylor had envisioned anthropology to be comprised of ethnology and ethnography in equal parts, but today ethnography dominates the field. In this paper, we examine two reasons for the refugee status of ethnology. First, we look at the notorious "Galton effect." Second, we examine the problem of defining and using cultural units, particularly when positivistic and static theories and methods of culture have been largely discredited by anthropology. We argue against any formulaic solutions to these problems and show that for each research question one needs to reconsider the criteria for how to construct cultural units and how to ensure that the cultures under study are not merely replicas of one another. We show that previous solutions to these issues are limited because they fail to appreciate the contingent and multidimensional nature of culture. We also argue that, instead of a "Galton problem," there is actually a "Galton asset," which can be used to study historical and emergent communicative networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]