Skip to main content
University of California Press

Pathways of Power

Building an Anthropology of the Modern World
by Eric R. Wolf (Author), Aram Yengoyan (Foreword by), Sydel Silverman (Contribution by)
Paperback eBook
Price: $33.95 / £29.00
Publication Date: Jan 2001
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 483
ISBN: 9780520924871
Read an Excerpt(opens in new window)
Recommend to your Library (PDF)(opens in new window)Rights and Permissions

About the Book

This collection of twenty-eight essays by renowned anthropologist Eric R. Wolf is a legacy of some of his most original work, with an insightful foreword by Aram Yengoyan. Of the essays, six have never been published and two have not appeared in English until now. Shortly before his death, Wolf prepared introductions to each section and individual pieces, as well as an intellectual autobiography that introduces the collection as a whole. Sydel Silverman, who completed the editing of the book, says in her preface, "He wanted this selection of his writings over the past half-century to serve as part of the history of how anthropology brought the study of complex societies and world systems into its purview."

About the Author

Eric R. Wolf(1923-1999) had an illustrious and influential career as Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at H. Lehman College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York. His books previously published by California include Europe and the People Without History (reprint with new preface, 1997), Envisioning Power (1999), and The Hidden Frontier (with John W. Cole; reprint with new introduction, 1999). Sydel Silverman is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the City University of New York. She was president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research from 1987 to 1999.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Culture and Power in the Writings
of Eric R. Wolf, by Aram A. Yengoyan

Preface

Introduction: An Intellectual Autobiography

PART I. ANTHROPOLOGY

1. American Anthropologists and American Society
2. Kroeber Revisited
3. Remarks on The People of Puerto Rico
4. On Fieldwork and Theory
5. Anthropology among the Powers

PART II. CONNECTIONS

6. Building the Nation
7. The Social Organization of Mecca and the Origins
of Islam
8. Aspects of Group Relations in a Complex Society:
Mexico
9. The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National
Symbol
10. Closed Corporate Peasant Communities in
Mesoamerica and Central Java
11. The Vicissitudes of the Closed Corporate Peasant
Community
12. Kinship, Friendship, and Patron-Client Relations
in Complex Societies
13. Ethnicity and Nationhood

PART III. PEASANTS

14. Types of Latin American Peasantry: A Preliminary
Discussion
15. Specific Aspects of Plantation Systems in the New
World: Community Subcultures and Social Classes
16. Peasants and Revolution
17. Phases of Rural Protest in Latin America
18. Is the “Peasantry” a Class?
19. On Peasant Rent
20. The Second Serfdom in Eastern Europe and Latin
America
21. Peasant Nationalism in an Alpine Valley

PART IV. CONCEPTS

22. Culture: Panacea or Problem?
23. Inventing Society
24. The Mills of Inequality: A Marxian Approach
25. Incorporation and Identity in the Making of the
Modern World
26. Ideas and Power
27. Facing Power—Old Insights, New Questions
28. Perilous Ideas: Race, Culture, People

References
Index

Reviews

"Eric Wolf has literally set the terms for anthropological thinking about peasantries, culture and power, complex societies, and interactions between noncapitalist societies and capitalism. Every item in this excellent collection has stimulated and influenced both my own thought and that of many others in our field, as well as beyond it. "—Katherine Verdery, University of Michigan

"This powerful body of work begins ('Anthropology') and ends ('Concepts') in a rather speculative vein, taking us into the ideas of others and then back to Wolf. In these two sections we get a picture of the development of currents in anthropology (and the social sciences more broadly) from the early fifties to the present and the way in which Wolf's intellectual and political development was threaded through those debates and controversies. In the middle two sections ('Connections' and 'Peasants') we get the pathbreaking pieces that made Wolf the major figure he is. "—Gavin Smith, University of Toronto

"There is a large audience, to be found in anthropology and in related fields like history, cultural studies, gender studies, etc., who will receive the writings of Eric Wolf with appreciation. . . . His work is fully in the comparative anthropological tradition . . . [and] demonstrates the power of comparative historical analysis. "—Abraham Rosman, Barnard College, Columbia University