"Argonauts of the Western Pacific" by Bronisław Malinowski is an ethnography published in 1922. This groundbreaking work documents the Trobriand people of the Kiriwana island chain near New Guinea, focusing on their complex trading system called the kula. Malinowski revolutionized anthropology by practicing "participant observation"—living among his subjects rather than studying them from afar. The book redefined ethnographic fieldwork and established intensive fieldwork as the foundation of modern social anthropology, earning comparison to Shakespeare's impact on literature.
Wikipedia page about this book: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonauts_of_the_Western_Pacific