Evolutionism In Cultural Anthropology

This text examines the history of evolutionism in cultural anthropology, beginning with its roots in the 19th century, through the half-century of anti-evolutionism, to its re-emergence in the 1950s, and the current perspectives on it today.

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Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropologytraces the interaction of evolutionary thought and anthropological theory from Herbert Spencer to the twenty-first century. It is a focused examination of how the idea of evolution has continued to provide anthropology with a master principle around which a vast body of data can be organized and synthesized. Erudite and readable, and quoting extensively from early theorists (such as Edward Tylor, Lewis Henry Morgan, John McLennan, Henry Maine, and James Frazer) so that the reader might judge them on the basis of their own words, Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropology is useful reading for courses in anthropological theory and the history of anthropology.