Interesting Insights From An Atypical Perspective. How often have you ever heard the term “business anthropology”? Hell, how often have you ever heard the term “anthropology” and not pictured some remote tribe somewhere in some jungle or maybe desert? My guess is that your answer to both of those questions is somewhere in the range of “Rarely” to “Never” for nearly anyone reading this review. Even as widely read as *I* am, my answer would have been right there with you.
Yet here Sweet, a Xennial Londoner with a clearly leftist political bent – as in, he frequently villainizes pretty well anything white and/ or male – actually uses his experiences with both psychology and anthropology to show how the two interact to form culture in ways that you likely never even actively thought of… even if some of his observations make a fair amount of intuitive sense.
Depending on your own politics, you may well be praising Sweet’s more political commentary or you may be looking for the highest window available to you for defenestration purposes – but stick with this. Yes, it may be a touch annoying at times if you are more conservative than AOC or Bernie Sanders – sorry, Brits, I don’t know (or care about, frankly) your politics enough to give you an example from Sweet’s own backyard) – but Sweet really does have a lot of insight to offer here that you really should read, so work through your annoyances if possible and feel free to blast him on them in your review *after* you read the book, if you feel you must.
The star deduction isn’t for the political bent though, as I do try to be objective-ish with those. No, the star deduction is because of the lack of bibliography, clocking in at just 5% in the Advance Review Copy of the book that I had had for several weeks before publication and yet due to life happening just before and after the publication of this book was only able to read it a couple of weeks after publication in mid April 2026. The Sagan Standard – extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence – absolutely applies to quite a bit discussed in this text, so I would expect at least 20-30% documentation, and the given 5% falls well short of even the bare minimum 15% documentation I would expect to see from a more standard book with more standard points raised.
Still, read this book anyway. Even with the political bent (which, again, you may well appreciate depending on your own politics) and even with the lack of bibliography (which is inexcusable no matter your politics), there really is quite a bit here that is both interesting and perhaps even useful,. and if nothing else it can help show the kids in your life that there is yet another profession available to them that perhaps they may be interested in pursing and may not have been aware of. Given that so much of this book is based on Sweet’s own professional experience, it really does give almost as big an insight into what a “business anthropologist” does as it reveals about any more general cultural/ psychological insights into how we can all live together with at least somewhat more understanding of each other and how we interact with the “other”.
Very much recommended.
This review of The Rules That Make Us by Oliver Sweet was originally written on April 30, 2026.