A Scientific Theory Of Culture: And Other Essays
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
At the crossroads of anthropology and philosophy, Bronislaw Malinowski's A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays presents a groundbreaking argument: that culture, in all its complexity, can and must be studied with the same rigorous methodology applied to the natural sciences. Malinowski, one of the towering figures of 20th-century social anthropology, constructs a functionalist framework in which every cultural institution—from kinship systems to religious ritual—serves a definable biological or psychological need. The title essay, composed shortly before his death in 1942, stands as his most systematic and ambitious theoretical statement, while the accompanying essays illuminate the breadth of his intellectual reach across magic, myth, language, and social organisation. Malinowski's prose carries the confidence of a scholar who had spent decades in the field—most famously among the Trobriand Islanders of the South Pacific—translating lived experience into rigorous theory. His functionalist approach revolutionised British social anthropology and continues to provoke debate about the nature of culture, the purpose of human institutions, and the very possibility of a science of society. Whether one accepts or challenges his conclusions, the work remains an essential touchstone for anyone seeking to understand how modern anthropology came to be—and where its deepest questions still remain unanswered.
Author: Bronislaw Malinowski
Format: Paperback
Genre: Anthropology
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
At the crossroads of anthropology and philosophy, Bronislaw Malinowski's A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays presents a groundbreaking argument: that culture, in all its complexity, can and must be studied with the same rigorous methodology applied to the natural sciences. Malinowski, one of the towering figures of 20th-century social anthropology, constructs a functionalist framework in which every cultural institution—from kinship systems to religious ritual—serves a definable biological or psychological need. The title essay, composed shortly before his death in 1942, stands as his most systematic and ambitious theoretical statement, while the accompanying essays illuminate the breadth of his intellectual reach across magic, myth, language, and social organisation. Malinowski's prose carries the confidence of a scholar who had spent decades in the field—most famously among the Trobriand Islanders of the South Pacific—translating lived experience into rigorous theory. His functionalist approach revolutionised British social anthropology and continues to provoke debate about the nature of culture, the purpose of human institutions, and the very possibility of a science of society. Whether one accepts or challenges his conclusions, the work remains an essential touchstone for anyone seeking to understand how modern anthropology came to be—and where its deepest questions still remain unanswered.