Evolution and Culture

by Marshall Sahlins

Book Overview

A unified interpretation of the evolution of species, humanity, and society

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0472087762
• ISBN13: 9780472087761
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.2" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

One of the two most important books of the 20th Century

I read this book in 1967 while I was an anthropology student at the University of Virginia. I just found it again online and ordered it. I think that this book and Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus are the two most important books of the 20th Century. I thought that the attempt to use evolutionary anthropological theory to make predictions about the future course of human societies was bold and approached brazen, but I have always remembered one prediction that has become increasingly evident with each decade. Fifty years ago Sahlins and Service suggested that the dominant country/culture of the foreseeable future would be the Chinese and that the US would be well served to position itself as the Greeks were to the Romans to maintain our influence during our period of declining power. Unfortunately, we seem to be enthusiastically pursuing a course of disparaging intellectual achievement rather than respecting and encouraging it and thereby squandering our heritage. Read this book. While parts are out of date, the overall thrust remains accurate and vitally important to anyone who cares about the future of the US and western civilization.