Volume 6, Number 9 · May 26, 1966
Malinowski Revisited
By Edmund R. Leach
Comparative Functionalism: An Essay in Anthropological Theory
by Walter Goldschmidt
University of California, 150 pp., $3.95
The arrogance of the British is really quite intolerable. Consider the present case. A distinguished American professor writes a short but elegant essay which his publishers extol to the skies as a major contribution to anthropological theory. In his opening chapter the author curtly dismisses the fashions in statistical comparison which are the current vogue among a high proportion of his American colleagues; the rest of the book is concerned with styles in sociological anthropology which were first developed in England. The author is well disposed towards these British theorists and he presents his own argument as a development from their positions. And the only reward that he gets for this display of international goodwill and freedom from academic chauvinism is the snide British comment: 'But, my dear Sir, you are twenty-five years out of date.'
Review, 1272 words
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