On Primitive Society: and other forbidden topics

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.