Customer Reviews

Evolution and Culture (Ann Arbor Paperbacks)

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I also read Evolution and Culture as a student (in the early 60's) and it has served me well as an anchor for my perspectives on national behavior and culture change ever since. Unlike the previous reviewer, I do not recall that Sahlins and Service specifically said any particular nation, such as China, would become the birthplace of a new dominant culture or civilization. Only that they suggested, from observations made on a number of historical examples, that the next rise of civilization would be carried on by some culture that was marginal and outlying to the currently dominant one. In their terms, the new rise to dominance would be accomplished by some group that is uninvested in the obsolete technologies of the past. I do agree that it is among the most important works of the 20th century and ought be on the shelf of anyone who gives thought to the current status of nations and why or how they change.

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 While parts are out of date, the overall thrust remains accurate and vitally important to anyone who cares about the future of the US and western civilization.