Exploring Commodities: An Anthropologist on the Trails of Malinowski and Traven in Mexico

In this book noted economic anthropologist Scott Cook draws on many decades of fieldwork in the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Tamaulipas to take on the challenge of crafting an academic memoir designed to provide insights into the role of commodities in his own life and times and especially in his anthropological career.

After completing undergraduate studies at the University of Texas and American University (BA Economics, 1959), Scott Cook did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin (economics), the University of Puerto Rico, and completed his doctoral studies at the University of Pittsburgh in 1968. Subsequently, he served on the faculty at Michigan State University (1968-1971), and at the University of Connecticut (1971-1997) where he is currently a Professor emeritus. At UConn he also directed the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (1987-1992) and the Puerto Rican and Latino Studies Institute (1996-2000). His most recent book is Land, Livelihood, and Civility in Southern Mexico (2014). Several earlier books, including Understanding Commodity Cultures (2004) and many journal articles dating back to the 1960s address various themes in economic anthropology, peasant-artisan studies, Mexican studies, and border studies, and draw upon extensive fieldwork in Oaxaca, Mexico and the Texas-Mexico border.