Studying Societies and Cultures: Marvin Harris's Cultural Materialism and Its Legacy

Front Cover
Lawrence A. Kuznar, Stephen K. Sanderson
Paradigm Publishers, 2007 - Biography & Autobiography - 332 pages
"A thought-provoking, stimulating volume on the past, present and future of cultural materialism that is both laudatory of Harris' research strategy and critical of it." Paul Shankman, University of Colorado One of the most important anthropologists of all time, Marvin Harris was influential worldwide as the founder of cultural materialism. This book accessibly analyzes Harris's theories and their important legacies today. The chapters explore cultural materialism's epistemology and its relation to rational choice theory, Darwinian social science, and population pressures. The authors assess recent attempts to extend and reformulate cultural materialism and highlight cross-cultural, archaeological, and ethnographic applications of cultural materialism today.

From inside the book

Contents

A Bibliometric Analysis
20
The Theoretical Legacies of Cultural Materialism
56
Cultural Materialism Rational Choice and the Problem
78
Copyright

10 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Bibliographic information