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This fresh interpretation of Man and
His Works by one of the most distinguished American
anthropologists is nothing less than a survey of all cultural
anthropology. It draws upon the rich heritage of every school
of thought and research in this fundamental science to explain
the social and creative life of mankind.
"Cultural anthropologists," as
the author observes in his Introduction, "study the
ways man has devised to cope with his natural setting and
his social milieu; and how bodies of custom are learned,
retained, and handed down from one generation to the next.
Students of culture are thus concerned with understanding
how a given way of achieving a given end -- organizing family
relationships, making a fish-trap, or accounting for the
creation of the world -- can vary widely from one people
to another, and yet help each of them attain adjustment
in the business of living. They seek to determine how established
forms of tradition change with the passage of time, whether
by reason of internal developments, or because of contact
with foreign ways; and how an individual born into a given
society absorbs, uses, and influences the customs which
make up his cultural heritage."
These basic problems of human culture are
the subject of this book. It moves from a discussion of
the nature of culture, its materials and structure, to a
considering of the processes of change that characterize
it, and the general principles that govern cultural change.
Noteworthy are the colorful descriptions of "primitive"
ways of life and the discussions of cultural relativism,
historic accident, and of the contributions of anthropology
to our knowledge of man and his world today. Many pertinent
illustrations and an elaborate bibliography help to make
this book a standard work of equal value and interest to
students and all educated readers.
Melville J. Herskovits, since 1935 Professor
of Anthropology at Northwestern University in Evanston,
Illinois, was born in 1895 at Bellefontaine, Ohio. He was
educated at the University of Chicago and Columbia University,
where he studied with Franz Boas among others and in 1923
received his doctorate. He has taught anthropology at Columbia,
Howard, and since 1927 at Northwestern.
In the last twenty years his field researches
in the culture of the Negro have taken Dr. Herskovits to
Dutch Guiana, West Africa, Haiti, Trinidad, and Brazil.
A member of the permanent council of the International Anthropological
Congress and of many learned societies both here and abroad,
Dr. Herskovits is the author of several significant books
in physical and cultural anthropology. Among them are The
American Negro, A Study in Racial Crossing
(1928), Anthropometry of the American
Negro (1930), Life
in a Haitian Valley (1937), Dahomey
(1938), Acculturation
(1938), The Economic Life of Primitive
Peoples (1940), and with his wife,
Frances S. Herskovits, Outline
of Dahomean Religious Belief (1933),
Rebel Destiny, Among the Bush
Negro of Dutch Guiana (1934), Suriname
Folklore (1936), and Trinidad
Village (1947).
In this book, Dr. Herskovits draws upon
a lifetime of teaching and scholarship, as well as the best
and latest studies of his fellow-anthropologists everywhere,
to give students and educated readers generally an authoritative,
interesting, and thoughtful survey of anthropology as a
science.
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