Book Condition: Very Good with slight tropical speckling to Page Edges and small (icm square) Red "P" ink mark on bottom Page Edge, Otherwise, clean, clear text in tightly bound volume. No other internal inscriptions, markings or stains. Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.4 x 8.5 inches. Weight: 2 pounds. Second Printing of Beacon Press paperback Edition of 1987. In the early 1900s, anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski did his field work in the Trobriand Islands of the Western Pacific. After getting himself ashore, he dropped himself into their culture and begun having to learn their language and understand their customs. The result were a series of groundbreaking books in the field of anthropology, much of which is still entertaining to read today. Malinowski founded the field of Social Anthropology known as Functionalism, holding the belief that all components of society interlock to form a well-balanced system. He emphasized characteristics of beliefs, ceremonies, customs, institutions, religion, ritual and sexual taboos. His New York Times obituary named him an "integrator of ten thousand cultural characteristics." Malinowski’s first field study came in 1915-18 when he studied the Trobriand Islanders of New Guinea in the southwest Pacific. He used a holistic approach in studying the native’s social interactions including the annual Kula Ring Exchange, finding it to be associated with magic, religion, kinship and trade. He contributed to a cross-cultural study of psychology through his observations of the relationships of kinship. He discovered evidence to discredit Sigmund Freud’s theory of the Oedipus Complex in the lives of the Trobianders by proving that individual psychology depends on cultural context.
+
