The Character of Human Institutions
Robin Fox and the Rise of Biosocial Science
1st Edition
Published on 14. November 2017
Book
Paperback/Softback
382 pages
978-1-4128-6554-8 (ISBN)
Description
This collection of essays by seventeen outstanding scientists and scholars celebrates the life and work of Robin Fox, and the idea of a biosocial science. From early studies of kinship, primates, the brain, evolution, the incest taboo and aggression, to later work on literature, politics, civilization, law, the bible, Shakespeare, and the history of ideas, Fox has inspired many with his evolutionary vision of humanity that goes beyond narrow disciplinary boundaries and embraces the "Universal History of Mankind," including the possible human future. Fox's work encompasses sociobiology but is not limited by it. He preceded it and is both influenced by it and helped to foster it. But his work represents an independent "biosocial science" stream of thinking that accepts the Darwinian mandate while avoiding reductionism by recognizing culture as a natural phenomenon. His contribution has recently been recognized by election to the National Academy of Sciences.
This book is not only a tribute to one remarkable thinker but a brilliant, entertaining and diverse summary of the state of play in current biosocial science and the thought of those influenced by it across the whole intellectual spectrum. It is that rare academic book where high thinking and good humor share the field, as they do in the life of its honoree.
This book is not only a tribute to one remarkable thinker but a brilliant, entertaining and diverse summary of the state of play in current biosocial science and the thought of those influenced by it across the whole intellectual spectrum. It is that rare academic book where high thinking and good humor share the field, as they do in the life of its honoree.
Reviews / Votes
"This festschrift, of sorts, for Robin Fox, a major figure in biosocial science and modern anthropology, contains essays by major thinkers in the field, and covers a wide variety of subjects: a fitting tribute to a polymath scientist whose interests and contributions range widely as well. . . . This is a wonderful, sparkling collection of writing on ideas, their history and their importance to society."-ProtoView
"This work of seventeen outstanding essays is a fitting tribute to Robin Fox, one of the most eminent anthropologists and polymaths of our time, now in his eightieth year. Fox is a courageous warrior who declared war on mainstream social science almost 50 years ago. He renounced its cultural relativism and ideologically-driven social constructionism that claimed to explain everything, and hence nothing, in his 1971 book (with Lionel Tiger) The Imperial Animal. His clarion call in this and numerous other works calling for investigations into pancultural human nature set me a countless others on the quest for biosocial theory in the social sciences. As this book, and a cascade of other books and articles can attest, he has lived to see his dream come true. Biosocial science has breached the shoddy walls of twentieth century social science and is about to take the castle keep."
-Anthony Walsh, Boise State University
"Robin Fox's pioneering work on the significance of primate studies for socio-cultural anthropology in the 1970s was deeply inspirational to me. That so many of Robin's ideas were to be vindicated by subsequent research testifies to the visionary character of his thinking at a time when the primate data base was rather scanty, and attempts to bridge the biological and socio-cultural realms were generally met with skepticism or indifference, at best."
-Bernard Chapais, University of Montreal
"Sadly Robin may be one of the last great social anthropologists of our lifetime . . . And it may be a very long time in-deed before we have someone like Robin who masters all of an-thropology, from kinship right on up. This excellent book gives us a taste of such an organism and why it so valuable to have at least one of them around."
-Robert Trivers, Crafoord Prize for Theoretical Biology of the Swedish Royal Academy
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Inc
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
1 s/w Tabelle
1 Tables, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
740 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4128-6554-8 (9781412865548)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
07/2017
Routledge
€55.49
Available for download
E-Book
07/2017
Routledge
€55.49
Available for download
Book
06/2014
1st Edition
Routledge
€215.77
Shipment within 10-15 days
Person
Michael Egan taught at University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Brigham Young University, Hawaii. He was the editor of The Oxfordian and is the author of eleven books.
Content
On Reading 'Participant Observer' Foreword, I Personal and Confidential Introduction: Mainstream Maverick 1 This Guy, Fox 2 A Tribute and Personal Thanks II Popularity and Drink 3 Writing Popular Anthropology 4 Drink and Duty: Extreme Drinking Rituals in the British Army III Laughter and Happiness 5 Understanding Laughter 6 Joyous, Equal, and Free: Conditions of Felicity in Human Organizations IV Kinship and Incest 7 Kinship Constructed Us: Primate Kinship and Cultural Anthropology 8 Lighting the Red Lamp of Incest 9 Darwin and Cousin Marriage in England V Self and Epic 10 The Image of the Good Imperial Education 11 The Ethnography of the Self: Anthropologists' Autobiographies 12 The Universal Epic: A Research Challenge VI Nature and Society 13 From Human Nature to Human Society: Why Anthropology Cannot Ignore Biological Constants 14 The Changing Nature of Human Nature 15 Science and Anti-Science in Anthropology: A Look Back VII Finale 16 The Consumerist Cosmos 17 Last Word: The Razor's Edge