This chapter outlines the main areas of development characterising Brazilian anthropology, beginning with the late 1800s and ending with the present. The history of anthropology in Brazil has been significantly influenced by processes of national formation, particularly the entrenchment of slavery, oppression of the black population and destruction of indigenous peoples. The first anthropologists, predominantly men of European origin, focused on studying and racially classifying these groups framed as inferior in order to define their role within the nation. Starting in the 1930s, Brazil became the target of considerable interest on the part of foreign anthropologists, especially American and French scholars, as part of a process of disciplinary consolidation. The period of military dictatorship represented a major historical phase marked by violence and political persecution throughout the country, universities included. The end of the dictatorship brought the advent of new horizons and anthropologists reiterated their politically engaged role by contributing to struggles for a new, democratic and more inclusive society. Today, anthropological investigations of inequalities linked to class, race, gender and sexuality, of African and syncretic religious forms, and of indigenous cultures’ traditions and transformations constitute both an academic project and an effort to integrate anthropology into the complex fabric of Brazilian society.