Hallpike Christopher R. On Primitive Society: And Other Forbidden Topics

AuthorHouse Publishing, 2011. — 448 p.Political correctness in social anthropology has made the terms 'primitive society' 'social evolution' and even 'human nature' unacceptable, and removed the possibility of open academic debate about them. Written from the perspective of a lifetime's research, this collection of papers takes a hard look at these taboos, and challenges some fundamental assumptions of post-modern thinking. Including some new material on memetics, evolutionary psychology and Darwinian theory in the social sciences, this collection provides a long-overdue assessment of some key topics in modern anthropology.Christopher Robert Hallpike is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at McMaster University, Canada; a Doctor of Letters of Oxford University; and sometime Bye Fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge. He has written numerous books, including The Foundations of Primitive Thought (1980), The Principles of Social Evolution (1988), The Evolution of Moral Understanding (2004) and, most recently, How We Got Here: from bows and arrows to the space age (2008).