Marshall Sahlins facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Marshall Sahlins
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| Born |
Marshall David Sahlins
December 27, 1930 |
| Died | April 5, 2021 (aged 90) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
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| Citizenship | American |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan (BA, MA) Columbia University (PhD) |
| Children | Peter Sahlins |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Cultural Anthropology |
| Institutions | University of Chicago |
| Thesis | Social Stratification in Polynesia: a Study of Adaptive Variation in Culture (1954) |
| Doctoral advisor | Morton Fried |
| Doctoral students | David Graeber |
| Influences | Karl Polanyi, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Leslie White |
Marshall David Sahlins (/ˈsɑːlɪnz/ SAH-linz; December 27, 1930 – April 5, 2021) was an American cultural anthropologist. He was famous for his studies of people in the Pacific region. He also made important contributions to the way we think about human cultures. He was a distinguished professor at the University of Chicago.
Contents
Biography
Marshall Sahlins was born in Chicago, Illinois. His parents, Bertha and Paul Sahlins, came from Russia. His father was a doctor, and his mother stayed home to care for the family. Marshall grew up in a family that was not very religious.
He went to the University of Michigan for his first two degrees. There, he studied with an anthropologist named Leslie White. Later, he earned his PhD from Columbia University in 1954. At Columbia, he was influenced by thinkers like Eric Wolf and Karl Polanyi.
In 1957, Sahlins became a professor at the University of Michigan. In the 1960s, he became very active in politics. He protested against the Vietnam War. He even came up with the idea for a "teach-in". This was a new way to protest, inspired by the "sit-in" protests for civil rights. In 1968, he joined others in refusing to pay taxes to protest the war.
In the late 1960s, Sahlins spent two years in Paris, France. He learned a lot from French thinkers like Claude Lévi-Strauss. He also saw the student protests happening there in May 1968. In 1973, he moved to the University of Chicago. He continued his activism there. For example, he protested the opening of the university's Confucius Institute. In 2013, he resigned from the National Academy of Sciences. He did this to protest military research and the election of another anthropologist, Napoleon Chagnon.
Marshall Sahlins also taught many students who became important anthropologists. One of his students, Gayle Rubin, said he was a "mesmerizing speaker." In 2001, Sahlins became the publisher of Prickly Paradigm Press. This company publishes small books on interesting topics in anthropology and philosophy. He passed away on April 5, 2021, in Chicago, at the age of 90. His brother was the writer Bernard Sahlins, and his son, Peter Sahlins, is a historian.
Work and Ideas
Sahlins is known for his ideas about how culture shapes people's lives. He studied how our beliefs and traditions affect our actions. He also challenged ideas that said human behavior is only about money or biology. Most of his research was done in the Pacific, especially in Fiji and Hawaii.
Early Studies
In his early work, Sahlins studied how societies change over time. He looked at how cultures become more complex and adapt to their surroundings. He also noted that cultures are not isolated. They share ideas and inventions, which makes them develop in unique ways. His 1958 book, Social Stratification in Polynesia, looked at how different groups were organized in Polynesian cultures.
Thinking About Economics
In his 1972 book, Stone Age Economics, Sahlins explored how different cultures handle their economies. He argued that economic life is shaped by cultural rules. This means that how people produce and share goods depends on their culture. It's not just about individuals trying to make the most money.
One of his most famous essays from this book is "The Original Affluent Society." In it, he suggested that early hunter-gatherer societies were actually quite "rich." They had enough resources and free time, even though they didn't have a lot of possessions. This idea challenged the common belief that modern societies are always better off.
Understanding History
Later in his career, Sahlins focused on how different cultures understand history. He explored how societies change over time. He believed that history is not just a straight line of events. Instead, it's a mix of different forces and individual choices. He argued that people have the power to make history. Sometimes, this power comes from their position in society. Other times, it's a lucky mix of events that allows them to change things.
One of his books, Islands of History, led to a big discussion. It was about how Captain James Cook died in the Hawaiian Islands in 1779. Sahlins argued that different cultures have different ways of thinking. He said that assuming everyone thinks the same way is a form of Eurocentrism.
Culture is Key
Sahlins strongly believed that culture is at the center of human life. He disagreed with ideas that said human culture is just a result of biology or economics. In his book, The Use and Abuse of Biology, he argued against the idea that our genes determine everything about us. He believed that things like kinship (family relationships) are cultural ideas, not just biological facts.
Selected publications
- Social Stratification in Polynesia. Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, 29. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1958. (ISBN: 9780295740829)
- Evolution and Culture, edited with Elman R Service. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960. (ISBN: 9780472087754)
- Moala: Culture and Nature on a Fijian Island. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962.
- Tribesman. Foundations of American Anthropology Series. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968.
- Stone Age Economics. New York: de Gruyter, 1972. (ISBN: 9780415330077)
- The Use and Abuse of Biology: An Anthropological Critique of Sociobiology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1976. (ISBN: 9780472766000)
- Culture and Practical Reason. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1976. (ISBN: 9780226733616)
- Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early History of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981. (ISBN: 9780472027217)
- Islands of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. (ISBN: 9780226733586)
- Anahulu: The Anthropology of History in the Kingdom of Hawaii, with Patrick Vinton Kirch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. (ISBN: 9780226733654)
- How "Natives" Think: About Captain Cook, for Example. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. (ISBN: 9780226733685)
- Culture in Practice: Selected Essays. New York: Zone Books, 2000. (ISBN: 9780942299380)
- Waiting for Foucault, Still. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2002. (ISBN: 9780971757509)
- Apologies to Thucydides: Understanding History as Culture and Vice Versa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. (ISBN: 9780226734002)
- The Western Illusion of Human Nature. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2008. (ISBN: 9780979405723)
- What Kinship Is–and Is Not. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. (ISBN: 9780226925127)
- Confucius Institute: Academic Malware. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2015. (ISBN: 9780984201082)
- On Kings, with David Graeber, HAU, 2017 (ISBN: 9780986132506)
- The New Science of the Enchanted Universe: An Anthropology of Most of Humanity. Princeton University Press, 2022.
Awards
- Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters), awarded by the French Ministry of Culture
- Honorary doctorates from the Sorbonne and the London School of Economics
- Gordon J. Laing Prize for Culture and Practical Reason, awarded by the University of Chicago Press
- Gordon J. Laing Prize for How 'Natives' Think, awarded by the University of Chicago Press
- J. I. Staley Prize for Anahulu, awarded by the School of American Research
See also
In Spanish: Marshall Sahlins para niños
- Stranger King
- Economic anthropology
- Gift economy
- Hunter-gatherer
- Original affluent society
