Robert Redfield and the Development of American Anthropology

Relying upon close readings of virtually all of his published and unpublished writings as well as extensive interviews with former colleagues and students,Robert Redfield and the Development of American Anthropology traces the development of Robert Redfield's ideas regarding social change and the role of social science in American society. Clifford Wilcox's exploration of Redfield's pioneering efforts to develop an empirically based model of the transformation of village societies into towns and cities is intended to recapture the questions that drove early development of modernization theory. Reconsideration of these debates will enrich contemporary thinking regarding the history of American anthropology and international development.

Table of Contents:
1 Introduction Chapter 2 Robert Redfield and the Modernist Vision in American Social Science Chapter 3 A Science of Social Change: Constructing the Folk-Urban Continuum Chapter 4 A Broadening of Perspective: Beyond Anthropology as a Natural Science Chapter 5 From Folk Societies to Civilizations Chapter 6 Comparative Civilizations Studies: Explorations in Theory and Methodology Chapter 7 An Anthropological Approach to Civilization Chapter 8 Afterword: The Redfield Legacy

About the Author :
Clifford Wilcox received a Ph.D. in History and Education from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Review :
Wilcox has written a subtle and comprehensive critical study of one of the most important figures in American anthropology. Anyone interested in the rise of comparative civilization studies and its relation to modernization theory in the mid-twentieth century must read this book. Clifford Wilcox has done a great service by writing this intellectual biography of Robert Redfield, whose influence in directing American anthropology toward the study of civilizations and their local expressions has been immense. Now that the idea of civilization is again under scrutiny and contention, nothing could be more timely than this book. Wilcox gives us a perceptive account of Redfield just when we need to rediscover him. Robert Redfield and the Development of American Anthropology is a carefully researched, authoritatively narrated study of the intellectual life and impact of one of U.S. anthropology's most important figures during the first half of the 20th century. It is an excellent contribution to the history of anthropology. Wilcox's meticulous scholarship is an important contribution to anthropological theory. . . . all those who read Wilcox's book will learn a great deal about a major figure in the history of American anthropology. Clifford Wilcox has written a crucial book on a crucial figure in the development of American social science. Robert Redfield emerges in this account as the key figure of the second Chicago School, a pathbreaking enterprise knitting together Robert Park's tradition of urban sociology with an anthropology of social change and the humanistic study of civilizations to address the great questions of development and modernization in the mid twentieth century. Wilcox builds on meticulous research and exquisite judgment to bring before us a vivid sense of Redfield's achievement, very much worth remembering as we confront the dilemmas of development and culture anew in the twenty-first century.