Routledge Studying Societies and Cultures: Marvin Harris's Cultural Materialism and its Legacy (Studies in Comparative Social Science)

Product Description "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. Review “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 About the Author Lawrence A. Kuznar is Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University–Purdue University, Fort Wayne. He is the author of Reclaiming a Scientific Anthropology (Altamira Press 1997). Stephen K. Sanderson is Professor of Sociology at the University of California-Riverside. He is the author of numerous articles and many books, including Evolutionism and Its Critics (Paradigm 2007).