Primitive Society

New York Ny: Boni And Liveright, 1920. 1st Edition 1st Printing. Hardcover. Good. Viii, 463 Pp. Blue Cloth, Git. First Printing (With 1920 Date On Title Page And Copyright Page). Light Wear, Cover Gilt Brilliant, Spine Gilt Cler And Complete But Weak. No Marks. Entire Text Block, Including Free Endpapers, Has Become Detached From The Binding, Without Loss To Covers Or Text Or Endpapers. Per Wikipedia, Robert Harry Lowie (1883 -1957) Was Born And Spent The First Ten Years Of His Life In Vienna, Austria-Hungary, But Came To The United States In 1893.[ He Studied At The College Of The City Of New York, Where In 1896 He Met And Became Friends With Paul Radin And From Where He Acquired His Ba In Classical Philology In 1901. After A Short Stint As A Teacher, He Began Studying Chemistry At Columbia University, But Soon Switched To Anthropology Under The Tutelage Of Franz Boas, Livingston Farrand And Clark Wissler. Influenced By Wissler, Lowie Began His First Fieldwork On The Lemhi Reservation In Idaho In The Northern Shoshone In 1906. He Graduated (Ph.D.) In 1908. With A Dissertation Titled "The Test-Theme In North American Mythology". In 1909, He Became Assistant Curator To Clark Wissler At The American Museum Of Natural History, New York. During His Time There, Lowie Became A Specialist In American Indians, Being Active In Field Research, Particularly In Several Excursions To The Great Plains. This Work Led In Particular To His Identification With The Crow Indians. In 1917, He Became Assistant Professor At The University Of California, Berkeley. From 1925 Until His Retirement In 1950, He Was Professor Of Anthropology At Berkeley, Where, Along With Alfred Louis Kroeber, He Was A Central Figure In Anthropological Scholarship. Lowie Undertook Several Expeditions To The Great Plains, Where He Conducted Ethnographic Fieldwork At The Absarokee (Crow, 1907, 1910-1916, 1931), Arikaree, Hidatsa, Mandan And Shoshone (1906, 1912-1916). Shorter Research Expeditions Led Him To The Southwestern United States, The Great Basin And To South America Where He Was Inspired By Curt Nimuendajú. The Focus Of Some Of Lowie's Work Was Salvage Ethnography, The Rapid Collection Of Data From Cultures Close To Extinction. Together With Alfred Kroeber, Lowie Was One Of The First Generation Of Students Of Franz Boas. His Theoretical Orientation Was Within The Boasian Mainstream Of Anthropological Thought, Emphasizing Cultural Relativism And Opposed To The Cultural Evolutionism Of The Victorian Era. Like Many Prominent Anthropologists At The Time, Including Boas, His Scholarship Originated In The School Of German Idealism And Romanticism Espoused By Earlier Thinkers Such As Kant, Georg Hegel And Johann Gottfried Herder. Lowie, Somewhat Stronger Than His Mentor Boas, Emphasized Historical Components And The Element Of Variability In His Works. For Him, Cultures Were Not Finished Constructs, But Always Changing And He Stressed The Idea That Cultures Could Interact. In 1919, Lowie Published Primitive Society, Which "Criticized The Hypothetical Reconstruction Of The Stages Of The Evolution Of Civilization As Postulated By Lewis H. Morgan", The Book Has Been Seen As A Key Text In The Promotion Of Theories Of Social Organization In Anthropology, Being Praised By Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown And Bronislaw Malinowski. It Was Also The Work That Inspired Claude Levi-Strauss To Move His Intellectual Interest From Philosophy To Anthropology. Lowie Influenced The Discipline Of Social Anthropology Through His Use Of A System To Distinguish Kinship Relationships: He Identified Four Main Systems, Which Differed Based On The Names Of The Relatives Of The First Ascending Generation, I.E. The Parent Generation. His Classification Scheme Was Slightly Modified By George P. Murdock By Dividing One Of Lowie's Four Systems Into A Further Three Types.