This festschrift commemorates Julian H. Steward. The essays were
contributed by former students, colleagues, and other
anthropologists whose research or thinking has been influenced by
him. There was no preconceived attempt to give the volume any
greater sense of unity or to impose upon the contributors any
restrictions as to subject matter. On the contrary, each author was
urged to write on an anthropological topic of greatest current
interest to himself. Many of the essays could be placed just as
handily within a division other than the one to which they have
arbitrarily been assigned in the book. This kind of
interchangeability may reflect, in some measure, the
interrelatedness of Steward's contributions to anthropological
theory.
The broad relevance of all the selections to Steward's work
could reflect also the extent to which his interests continue to be
reflected in the work of anthropologists influenced by him. It
could also reflect a parallelism of theoretical concerns within the
profession that stem from the cultural ambience that produced
Steward himself. Parallelisms and convergence are aspects of the
kind of cultural determinism which has claimed Steward's attention
during the many years that he fought a fairly lonely battle to
establish the respectability of evolutionism in anthropology. Now
that respectability has been achieved--with an almost bandwagon
fervor--it is clear that Steward, as much as anyone else in
anthropology, was "responsible" for the change.
The essays in this collection are at once a vindication of his
patience, an evidence of the high status he enjoys among
anthropologists, and a testimony to the impact of his unusual
creativity on his colleagues.
"Robert A. Manners" (1913-1996) received his Ph.D. from
Columbia University and carried on fieldwork in the Caribbean,
among American Indians in the Southwest, and in East Africa. He
wrote numerous articles and reviews for anthropological journals as
well as many books. He was professor of anthropology, Brandeis
University where he started up the department.
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