Cannibals and Kings: Origins of Cultures (repost)
Marvin Harris, "Cannibals and Kings: Origins of Cultures"
ISBN: 067972849X | 1991 | EPUB | 368 pages | 2 MB
In this brilliant and profound study the distinguished American anthropologist Marvin Harris shows how the endless varieties of cultural behavior – often so puzzling at first glance – can be explained as adaptations to particular ecological conditions. His aim is to account for the evolution of cultural forms as Darwin accounted for the evolution of biological forms: to show how cultures adopt their characteristic forms in response to changing ecological modes.
"[A] magisterial interpretation of the rise and fall of human cultures and societies."
– Robert Lekachman, Washington Post Book World
"Its persuasive arguments asserting the primacy of cultural rather than genetic or psychological factors in human life deserve the widest possible audience."
– Gloria Levitas The New Leader
"[An] original and…urgent theory about the nature of man and at the reason that human cultures take so many diverse shapes."
– The New Yorker
"Lively and controversial."
– I. Bernard Cohen, front page, The New York Times Book Review