What Kinship Is-And Is Not offers, on its surface, a simple theoretical argument, laid out in the titles of its mere two chapters: kinship is culture, not biology. But along the way to proving his point, Marshall Sahlins engages a dazzling array of thinkers, from Aristotle to Emile Durkheim to Maril[...]

Thucydides' classic work on the history of the Peloponnesian War is the root of Western conceptions of history--including the idea that Western history is the foundation of everyone else's. Here, Marshall Sahlins takes on Thucydides and the conceptions of history he wrought with a groundbreaking new[...]

Stoneage Economics is a classic of economic anthropology, ambitiously tackling the nature of economic life and how to study it comparatively. This collection of six influential essays is one of Marshall Sahlins' most influential and enduring works, claiming that stone age economies formed the origin[...]

Reflecting the decline in college courses on Western Civilization, Marshall Sahlins aims to accelerate the trend by reducing "Western Civ" to about two hours. He cites Nietzsche to the effect that deep issues are like cold baths; one should get into and out of them as quickly as possible. The deep i[...]

Ambitiously tackling the nature of economic life and how to study it comparatively, Stone Age Economics includes six studies that reflect the author's ideas on revising traditional views of hunter-gatherer and so-called primitive societies, revealing them to be the original affluent society. When it[...]

When Western scholars write about non-Western societies, do they inevitably perpetuate the myths of European imperialism? Can they ever articulate the meanings and logics of non-Western peoples? Who has the right to speak for whom? Marshall Sahlins addresses these issues, while building a case for t[...]

"Culture in Practice" collects the academic and political writings from the 1960s through the 1990s of anthropologist Marshall Sahlins. More than a compilation, "Culture in Practice" unfolds as an intellectual autobiography. The book opens with Sahlins's early general studies of culture, economy, an[...]