Book Reviews

GENERAL AND THEORETICAL

The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome. LESLIEA.
WHITE,New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1959. xi, 378 pp., figures.
$7.50.
Reviewed by JULIAN H. STEWARD,
University of Illinois
For many years Leslie White stood virtually alone in his uncompromising support
of the 19th century cultural evolutionists and in opposition to the followers of Franz

Boas. By the end of World War 11,however, a resurgent interest in evolutionary theory
was unmistakable, and today this point of view is firmly entrenched. The number of
anthropologists who have written on cultural evolution in connection with the centennial of The Origin of Species is remarkable.
It might seem that White has acquired a substantial company of fellow thinkers.
The Evolution of Culture, like The Science of Culture, 1949, however, pays astonishingly
little heed to these latter-day evolutionists. While writings of the fifties are perhaps
ignored because the manuscript of The Evolution of Culture was apparently completed
by 1950, the book gives the strong impression that White finds little of value in the
work of his contemporaries. Where, then, does the author stand in relation to modern
trends?
White is undeviating in his dedication to the principles of the 19th century evolutionists: The theory of evolution set forth in this work does not differ one whit in
principle from that expressed in Tylors Anthropology in 1881 . . . (p. ix). I think this
means that, although both 19th and 20th century evolutionists differ essentially from
Boas followers in their search for processes or causes, White, like his 19th century forbears, employs a largely deductive method, whereas other contemporary evolutionists
are more strongly inductive. That is to say, White treats cultural phenomena as the
manifestation of principles that are universal, and, in many cases, cosmic. For example,
the discussion of the relationship of mans control of energy sources to cultural evolution is preceded by several pages (pp. 33-38) on the laws of thermodynamics, entropy,
biological conversions of energy, and the like, which endeavor to establish cosmic
principles that are manifest in cultural processes. Analysis of social segmentation is
introduced by a discourse on segmentation in galaxies, molecules, organic life and the
universe generally (pp. 145-147). The chapter on integration of social systems is prefaced by a statement of principles of integration in the physical and biological worlds
(pp. 105-107). These principles, of course, have only limited applicability to behavioral
phenomena, but where they leave off the author endeavors to explain all culture as
manifestations of universal culturological principles. While most social scientists hold
the discovery of universal laws to be a major goal, I think that Whites approach to
this goal distinguishes him from most of his fellow anthropologists.
White is interested in the culture of mankind as a whole, and he conceptualizes
culture as a generalized, world-wide phenomenon that exemplifies universal principles
rather than as a series of partially distinctive areal patterns that result from local
processes or causes. His primary taxonomic divisions, therefore, are global epochs of
history rather than periods in local sequences. More specifically, The Evolution of Culture deals with two generalized world cultures. The first is that of primitive, kin-based

144

Book Reviews

145

societies, Morgans societas, which evolved one million years ago and lasted until the
agricultural revolution. The second is that of the internally differentiated agrarian
state, Morgans civitas, which represents a revolutionary transformation of primitive
society and which embraces a great variety of cultures from the earliest civilizations
of the Old and New Worlds through the fall of the Roman Empire.
Although it is difficult to characterize other contemporary evolutionists, I believe
that most of us differ from White in our tendency to begin with the particulars of local
area cultures and sequences and then to broaden or generalize inferences about structures and processes through tentative hypotheses that may be tested cross-culturally.
This approach no doubt derives in part from the long-standing acceptance of culture
areas as primary taxonomic categories and from individual research commitment to
limited portions of the world. It is not, as White has contended about my own research,
anti-evolutionary and relativistic, except by a narrow definition which holds that any
formulation of cultural causality that fails to explain a21 culture is not evolutionary. I n
any event, most contemporary evolutionists still find the many varieties of primitive
and civilized societies interesting in their own right rather than primarily as manifestations of universal principles.
The question, then, is how far White can go in elucidating culture in general and
what inherent limitations his methodology contains. I think The Evolution of Culture
presents several extremely valuable and important inferences of a highly generalized
order, but that the attempts to explain all primitive and agrarian societies as manifestations of universal principles frequently run squarely counter to empirical fact. The real
contributions consist, in a sense, of a timely stock-taking of what is broadly known
today about cultural evolution.
First, White makes a good case for technological change as the ultimate cause of
social change. The theory that technology or control of nature directly affects society
and indirectly shapes religion and philosophy will be opposed only by those who see
ideologies as the starting point of cultural change. Whites theory is most clearly substantiated by the broad contrasts between the technological, social, and religious
patterns of societies before and after the agricultural revolution. White also deals
convincingly with some of the processes which transformed primitive societies into
states after the agricultural revolution. But, owing to the self-imposed litmitations of
seeking universal principles, he incorrectly ascribes universality to many of the principles assumed to operate in state formation, and he does not explain the admitted fact
that there is not a one-to-one correlation anywhere between technology, society, and
religion. This means, apparently, that White is not interested in the differences between the many kinds of primitive societies and civilized states.
Second, if one ignores the many social variations that evolved during a million
years of cultural history, he will find Whites contrasts between the general characteristics of primitive societies and civilized states very real and important. Primitive
societies, the author points out, have a simple technology and control little surplus
energy, are small, are undifferentiated in terms of social classes and specialists, are
strongly kin based, and have an all-pervading supernaturalism and shamanism. Civilized societies, after the agricultural revolution, were based upon the high-energy
yield of domesticated plants and animals, and they were large, internally differentiated,
class structured, territorially defined, and centrally integrated on a nonkin basis
through the church-state. I think the important contribution here is the emphasis upon
the agricultural revolution as the major turning point in cultural history and a delineation of its general consequences. But again, the general principles involved are pushed
too far in explaining particulars.

146

American Anlltropologist

[62, 19601

Without detracting from the importance of depicting cultural evolution in bold

strokes, it must be stressed again that the essentially high level of Whites generalizations makes their direct applications to particulars inadequate.
First, regarding the causal chain that begins with technology and control of energy
and runs through society to religion, there can be little disagreement with the self-evident proposition that as the amount of energy harnessed by sociocultural systems increases per capita per year, the systems not only increase in size, but become more
highly evolved, i.e. . . . more differentiated structurally and more specialized functionally (pp. 39-40). But this does not at all explain what kinds of social structures
arise from the utilization of technologies in particular environments. White concedes
(p. 41) that technological and environmental factors both operate to produce cultural
differences quite apart from the source and magnitude of energy harnessed, but he is
not interested in these differences and states (p. 51) that if one . . . wishes to discover
how cultural systems are structured and how they function . . . then one does not need
to consider the natural habitat at all, for he is really concerned with how and why the
culture of menkind as a whole has grown (p. 51, italics mine). He makes no use of the
heuristic concept of cultural ecology and attaches no importance to social variations
which relate in part to differences between such subsistence activities as food collecting
(dispersed Shoshoni and Alacaluf families), fishing (e.g., large Northwest Coast villages), hunting and collecting in areas of rich food resources (small California villages),
pastoral nomadism (multi-family Mongol bands), irrigation farming (early New and
Old World civilized societies), and may others.
Although Whites lack of interest in the varieties of primitive societies is not arguable, his theory that all these varieties are manifestations of a few simple principles
of kinship is open to dispute. White contends that human society developed from higher
primate society, first, when the nuclear family became patterned, followed then by an
extension of intrafamily kinship relations to a wider circle of individuals through the
growth of a classificatory kinship system. This kinship system, he states, extended to
the cooperating group, whose interpersonal relationships were prescribed by the terms
of address. The origin and development of kinship systems were identical with the
origin and development of the cooperative organization in the earliest stages of human
social evolution (p. 120). From top to bottom and throughout its extent laterally,
tribal organization tends to assume the form and spirit of kinship (p. 121).
Kinship bonds are undeniably important, and classificatory systems are frequent
among primitive societies as compared with civilized societies whose systems are typically descriptive and whose interpersonal relations are governed by status and role as
well as by kinship, but the kinship principle has serious limitations in explaining all
primitive societies. First, not all societies have classificatory systems, which means that
principles of sex, age, and functional associations must also be ascribed due importance
in characterizing primitive tribes. Second, Robert H. Lowie stressed long ago that ego
actually behaves very differently toward his real and classificatory relatives. Third,
all individuals embraced within the classificatory system do not always constitute the
cooperating group in any precise sense. Fourth, the mere principle of kinship extensions
cannot explain differences between patrilineal, matrilineal, and bilateral or ambilateral
organizations.
An example where the kinship principle has very limited applicability is the
Shoshoni (summarized in chapter 6, Julian H. Steward, Theory of Culture Change,
University of Illinois Press, 1955) who are hardly unknown, though not mentioned by
White. Their essentially independent nuclear families contradict the surprising state-

Book Reviews

147

ment that the nuclear family as an independent and discrete unit is rare or wanting
in primitive society (p. 247). The unstable and temporary associations of members of
Shoshoni social groups represent economic, recreational and religious affiliations of
families which were by no means necessarily related.
Among several more restricted theories, Whites hypothesis that the marriage
classes of the Kariera and Arunta developed from the coexistence of pairs of exogamous
matrilineal and patrilineal moieties, together with marriage of first cross-cousins among
the Kariera and of second cross-cousins among the Arunta (pp. 168-176), is both ingenious and convincing. It is not clear, however, why the Arunta eight-class system
represents higher evolution than the Kariera four-class system, except that Whites
definition makes increasing segmentation a criterion of any higher evolution. White
himself can recognize no technological reason for this position of the Arunta as compared with the Kariera, and he does not place either of these tribes in a scale of evolution among primitive societies generally. We wonder what position he would give some
of the eastern Brazilian Ge tribes, with their four sets of moieties and several age
classes.
White has previously written about mans control of energy, with special reference
to such technological break-throughs as the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, and the incipient age of nuclear energy. In the present book he contends that
domestication of plants and animals led to higher evolution because they tapped new
sources of energy and thus freed culture from the limitations imposed by dependence
upon mans body for motive power (p. 46). It should not be necessary to point out
that domesticated plants built no pyramids, wove no textiles, or performed other labor
in place of human beings and that domesticated animals took the place of men only
to a limited extent. Chapter 12 examines the causal relationship between domestication
and evolution a little more closely and suggests that the greater food yield of domesticated species leads to denser populations, greater leisure, and internal specialization
by persons who do not produce food. If, however, we wish to know the particular
mechanisms of state formation, this general process is too simple. It has been shown
(for example, see Julian H. Steward and Louis C. Faron, The Native Peoples of South
America, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1959), that the Araucanians and
northern Andean Indians had about the same farm productivity and population
density, but the former were organized in many small kinship groups, whereas the
latter had class-structured chiefdoms. The difference has to be explained by the integrating role of warfare and a religious cult among the chiefdoms, patterns which may
well have diffused to the northern Andean peoples from elsewhere. The more fundamental questions, therefore, is what particular factors in the evolution of each kind of
state induced or coerced a class of food producers in a society with potential surplus
to exert maximum effort to support classes of specialists in other activities. Unless we
assume an essential uniformity of all early states, the social revolutions that followed
the agricultural revolution will have to be explained by various distinctive combinations of factors. (Marvin Harris, The Economy Has No Surplus, American Alzthropologist, 61 :185-199, 1959, has explored certain aspects of the problems of energy control, surplus and society, while Fred Cottrell, Energy and Society, McGraw-Hill Book
Company, New York, 1955, surveys the problem in very broad terms. The reviewer in
a paper to be published in the Energy Symposium of the Sesquicentennial of Miami
University suggests some of the factors to be considered in a broad, cross-cultural comparison.)
The eighty-five pages devoted to the effects of the agricultural revolution draw

148

American Anthropologist

[62, 19601

upon the data of Meso-America, Peru, the Near East, the Indus Valley, China, Greece,
Rome, the Islamic World, the early Hebrew and many other cultures to illustrate the
principles of state formation. Some of the processes considered are population increase,
(pp. 292-293), internal specialization, class structure wherein serfs, slaves or peasants
do the menial work, militarism, an economy based upon property and exchange (but
there are two, mutually exclusive, types of economy, one involving state control and
the other commerce and money, pp. 294-296, the reasons for which are not explained),
and managerial controls of irrigation and other public works. The state-church
(chapter 13) is offered as a new concept to characterize the integrating principle of all
states.
This portion of the book is interesting for its mention of some of the factors of state
formation, but these factors are not examined with reference to the evolution of such
differing states as the early irrigation civilizations, conquest empires, commercial
societies, feudal states, and many other types. White betrays no interest in the provocative discussions recently carried on by Robert Adams, Robert Braidwood, Karl Wittfogel, the present reviewer, and others concerning differences between Peru, MesoAmerica and the Near East and the significance of such factors as land tenure, money,
commerce, irrigation controls, population growth, urbanization, and militarism in the
evolution of each of these societies.
The Evolution of Culture should be read by anyone interested in culture history
because it provides a broad perspective as well as many particular insights. The valuable features of the book, however, I believe, result from Whites considerable knowledge of early cultures rather than from the rigorous application of his theory or methodology. The book is also strongly recommended as a methodological essay. While
all science seeks universal laws, it has seemed that cultural behavior is so relativistically
patterned as to preclude generalization. The 19th century formulations were in part
philosophically conditioned by the concept of progress, but, more importantly, they
were tentative hypotheses based upon data drawn a t random from all cultures. I think
that White, like the 19th century writers, has derived his principles somewhat inductively from broad but unsystematized knowledge, then applied them deductively.
The question, then, is whether the principles would not be sounder if derived from a
systematic, inductive approach. And the corollary question is, how high an order of
generalization would these universal principles represent.

The Science o j Culture: A Study of Man and Civilization. LESLIEA. WHITE.New York:
Grove Press Inc., 1959. xx, 444 pp. $1.95.
Reviewed by ERICWOLF,Yale University
I t is always a hazardous undertaking to appraise an individuals contribution to the
science which absorbs his efforts: the venture is doubly dubious when it is attempted on
the basis of a single book. Yet the appearance of Whites Science of Culture in paperback
format serves as justification for these comments upon an incipient anthropological
classic. (I acknowledge with pleasure the effect of critical comments by Floyd G.
Lounsbury and Irving Rouse upon the final draft of this review.) It will be apparent to
anyone leafing through these collected essays that-despite the acrimonious debate of
the last fifteen years-Whites theories derive from a crucial anthropological tradition.
This tradition is doubly important today because it offers cogent theoretical reasons,
apart from reasons of pure empiricism or of traditional attachments to the ways of the
ancestors, for the continuing collaboration of archeologists, ethnologists, social anthro-