Cultural dynamics

Cultural Dynamics is not a textbook of anthropology, al though it originates ultimately from the revision of substantial sections of a volume designed for that purpose-the author's most comprehensive general study, Man and His Works (1948), of which an abridged and somewhat revised version subsequently appeared, entitled Cultural Anthropology (1955). Cultural Dynamics realizes the author's intention to issue separately and in easily available form the theoretical portions of this latter work, namely: Part III. The Nature of Culture; Part IV. Cultural Structure and Cultural Dynamics; and the final Part V, consisting of the single chapter, "Anthropology in a World Society."
The present volume is thus devoted to a discussion of the most basic issues in the science of anthropology-which takes its name from "man," anthropos, and which, more than any other science, has concerned itself with the full range of human be havior all times and places. Although Cultural Dynamics, in the best tradition of science, is rooted in substantive data in the form of the vast literature of descriptive ethnography, and is written in the style expected of scientific works, it is also a deeply felt book. For the author's conclusions flow not only from a broad knowledge of ethnographic sources and theoretical ethnological discussions but, above all, from long and intimate first hand experience with the realities of life in those societies traditionally labelled "primitive."