Defence of Any Donkey Could against (anticipated critics

This paper presents some defences of my new book “Any Donkey Could? Amusing essays on Western culture before the 20th century.” I focus on the omission of Jane Austen, John Stuart Mill in favour of Sidgwick, and the focus on Frazer, an anthropologist who wrote for the general public but did not ever pursue the method we associate with social anthropology, even in a light form: fieldwork on so-called primitive peoples.