Synopses & Reviews
Suddenly culture seems to explain everything, from civil wars to financial crises and divorce rates. But when we speak of culture, what, precisely, do we mean?
Adam Kuper pursues the concept of culture from the early twentieth century debates to its adoption by American social science under the tutelage of Talcott Parsons. What follows is the story of how the idea fared within American anthropology, the discipline that took on culture as its special subject. Here we see the influence of such prominent thinkers as Clifford Geertz, David Schneider, Marshall Sahlins, and their successors, who represent the mainstream of American cultural anthropology in the second half of the twentieth century--the leading tradition in world anthropology in our day. These anthropologists put the idea of culture to the ultimate test--in detailed, empirical ethnographic studies--and Kuper's account shows how the results raise more questions than they answer about the possibilities and validity of cultural analysis.
Written with passion and wit, Culture clarifies a crucial chapter in recent intellectual history. Adam Kuper makes the case against cultural determinism and argues that political and economic forces, social institutions, and biological processes must take their place in any complete explanation of why people think and behave as they do.
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Cultureis a mature work, profound, [and] well researched.
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Cultureis a mature work, profound, [and] well researched.
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A fascinating book on a crucial subject. "Culture"--the word--is everywhere these days, and anyone who reads this book will be better placed to think about how, when, and even if to use it.
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Culturecuts through the bloat of twentieth century social science with the knife of political reality. Kuper writes with acid clarity and enviable erudition. There will be howls of protest from American academia but Culturewas for this reader like finding a map of the intellectual wilderness in which we have been lost.
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Cultureis a mature work, profound, [and] well researched.
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Adam Kuper remains the supreme ethnographer of modern anthropology. In Culturehe shows once again the scope and depth of his scholarship, and the sound common sense of his judgment. No commentator and critic could have done a finer job than Kuper does here.
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The more power culture accumulates, the more urgent it is to understand just what it is, how it came to be and how it affects the way we think. Some hints can be found in an elegant historical survey in the opening chapters of [this] new book by the anthropologist Adam Kuper. Edward Rothstein
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[Adam Kuper] gives a historical analysis of the usage of "culture" and kindred words since the period of German and English romanticism. Then he examines the consequences of the decision by an influential school of American anthropologists to adopt "culture" as their professional specialty...Kuper has always been a bit of a stirrer, since his history of British social anthropology was published in 1973. He has not lost his sharpness of touch. New York Times
About the Author
Adam Kuper is Professor of Social Anthropology at Brunel University in Great Britain.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction: Culture Wars
PART ONE: GENEALOGIES
1. Culture and Civilization: French, German, and English Intellectuals, 1930-1958
2. The Social Science Account: Talcott Parsons and the American Anthropologists
PART TWO: EXPERIMENTS
3. Clifford Geertz: Culture as Religion and as Grand Opera
4. David Schneider: Biology as Culture
5. Marshall Sahlins: History as Culture
6. Brave New World
7. Culture, Difference, Identity
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index