GENERALITHEORETICAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
and those who accept his ideas about the trag-
edy of evolution (p. 182). His reluctance to
propose any solutions to halt the human
stampede toward extinction, save for the pros-
pect of reducing the manipulatory drive and
variation by genetic engineering (pp. 168-
169), and his rejection of education and cul-
tural relativism as last-minute survival strat-
egies (p. 181) create a stimulating source for
classroom discussion between professional an-
thropologists and their students. There is a se-
lected bibliography of over 40 sources in ad-
dition to the end-of-chapter footnotes with
cited references, a glossary of over 30 terms,
and an author-subject index to assist the
reader of the preface, introduction, and nine
chapters. This volume succeeds in destroying
certain myths about human evolution and be-
havior and offers a clear accounting of the
price paid for being a polytypic species.
Transitions et subordinations au capital-
isme. Maurict Goaklim, ed. Pans: Editions de la
Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1991.424 pp.
MICHEL-ROLPH TROUILLOT
Johns Hopkins University
At a time when anthropologists’ interest in
material life is decreasing in Europe and
North America, the project behind this book
is more than welcome. In 1984, an interna-
tional group of scholars sponsored by the Mai-
son des Sciences de l’Homme, in Paris, started
a research group on the transition between so-
cioeconomic systems. Two major themes, di-
rectly inherited from Marx, guided their re-
search: the spread of capitalist forms of pro-
duction and exchange into communities or
groups yet untouched or marginally touched
by capitalism, and the subsumption of non-
capitalist forms of production and exchange
within the capitalist sphere. This book, which
has 14 chapters written by 12 contributors, is
part of the harvest. The cases studied cover
Western Europe ( 5 ) , Latin America (4), Su-
matra ( l ) , and New Guinea (1).
Volume editor Maurice Godelier dominates
the book and tries to give it shape in a long in-
troduction and a postscript. These two texts
provide a substantial reading of Marx’s con-
ceptualization of transition. The leads are
many, the reflections fruitful. Godelier raises
pertinent questions about Marx’s relevance
t e a n d after-the fall of communism in the
USSR.
In spite of these firm boundaries, and in
spite ofits two central themes oftransition and
193
subsumption, the book does not always hold
together. This is too bad, since this volume
does not suffer from the congenital defects of
most edited books, namely, irrelevance and
lack of unity. Articles are tied to one or both of
the central themes and the authors look at
their empirical cases through largely similar
lenses. Unfortunately, about a third of the
chapters are much too sweeping. Moreover,
not all the authors speak directly to the theo-
retical issues raised by Godelier in his intro-
duction, even though it would have been easy
for them to do so. Godelier states (correctly, in
my view) that to speak of transition is to as-
sume the existence of systems. Yet not all the
authors who study cases of change dare tell us
whether or not they are witnessing systemic
transformation, structural change, or in-
stances of change which, however important,
may not activate a process of transition. Fur-
thermore, a majority of the contributors fail to
tell us clearly what their cases can bring to a
theory of transition (Pujadas is a notable ex-
ception). However obvious the theoretical
linkages, they remain underused. Similarly,
not all the authors who deal with the sub-
sumption of noncapitalist forms dare tell us
the relevance of their case to the vast literature
on that issue (Stoler here being the notable ex-
ception). Without such references, too many
of these case studies seem like deji vu.
Nevertheless, there are three good reasons
to go through this book. First, the reader
should be able to identify the better-docu-
mented cases and skip most of the others. Sec-
ond, Godelier’s reflections on transition are
worth reading for those who have not seen
them elsewhere. Third, and perhaps more im-
portant, rarely does one find in a single vol-
ume so many cases of communities in Western
Europe that are labeled “peasant,” “pre-cap-
italist,” or “non-capitalist,” juxtaposed with
cases from the so-called Third World. Of
course, these labels are debatable; but that
there can be debate at all is itself worth think-
ing about.
Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of
Nineteenth-Century Paradigms. Zmmanuel
Wallerstein. Cambridge: Polity Press/Basil
Blackwell, 1991.294 pp.
RICHARD P. CHANEY
University of Oregon
This latest book by Wallerstein is another
expansion on world-systems analysis, which
he initiated in 1974 in his book The Modem
194 AMERICAN
ANTHROPOLOGIST
World-System (Academic Press). Nearly twenty
years later, the idea of the global economy has
infused both academic and everyday thinking.
However, Wallerstein’s discussion is unique
in drawing our awareness to the enormous dis-
crepancies between the core and the periphery
in the capitalist world economy and to the
worldwide polarization of classes. Essentially,
world-systems theory denies that societies,
cultures, or nation-states represent autono-
mous systems. Rather, it is the capitalistic
world system that needs to be studied. Racism
and underdevelopment are manifestations of
the unequal distribution of surplus value. The
unequal distribution of wealth has led to an-
tisystemic resistance movements all over the
world. Basically, Wallerstein sees the world
capitalist system in crisis. We are living in a
period (100-150 years) of the transition of the
capitalist world economy into something
else-probably a socialistic world order.
This book calls for a deconstruction of the
present disciplinary boundaries of social sci-
ence, which were created in the 19th century.
Ideas of resistance and conflict are to replace
ideas of “development.” Essentially, Waller-
stein sees fundamental change arising from
systemic crisis. Antisystemic movements show
that progress is not inevitable; rather, crisis
brings us face to face with the possibility of
real historical choice.
The strength of world-systems theory has
been brought out by Marcus and Fischer in
Anthropology as Cultural Critique (University of
Chicago Press, 1986).They present world-sys-
terns theory as a radical challenge to interpre-
tive anthropology’s focus on a plurality of cul-
tural contexts of local knowledge, discussed in
terms of native categories. To Marcus and
Fischer, the central question is “how to rep-
resent the embedding of richly described local
cultural worlds in a larger impersonal system
of political economy” (p. 77).
Archeology
Ancient Road Networks and Settlement
Hierarchies in the New World. Charles D .
Trombold, ed. New Directions in Archaeology.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
284 pp.
MICHAEL E. SMITH
University at Albany, SUNY
This book contains case studies of ancient
road systems of the New World, theoretical
[95, 19931
Although world-systems theory is a power-
ful framework for revealing aspects of exploi-
tation, it conceals much about the tremendous
transformation we are living through. Reflec-
tion on the recent “deconstruction” of the So-
viet Union reveals that the problem of vested
interest is not just a concern in the capitalist
world system. Rather, core and periphery ten-
sion can be rampant in socialism. Further-
more, student resistance in China is not
merely against a reified world capitalist sys-
tem; it is against a specific cultural context in
space-time. As time goes on, we will appre-
hend that Wallerstein’s revelation of world-
systems theory is Euro-centric: it tends to con-
trast a Western image of “good” socialism
with “bad” capitalism. From the point ofview
of cultural anthropology, world-systems the-
ory blinds us to the possibility of learning from
other people in the world. Finally, whereas
world-systems theory is centered on the mode
of knowing, hermeneutical anthropology is
concerned more with the mode of being.
Traditionally, the context of the “individ-
ual-universal’’ was in terms of the local knowl-
edge of a specific cultural tradition in space-
time. The emerging anthropological context is
a transilient step into a new world of the to-
tality of culture-history as the problematic do-
main of the individual and the universal.
One’s relationship to this new totality of hu-
manity is the potential context of one’s indi-
viduation. The fundamental question of our
time concerns how we are to conceive the re-
lationship of the present to the past and to the
future. It concerns the relationship ofthe crea-
tivity displayed in diverse configurations or
patterns of traditional cultures to the creativ-
ity displayed in the emergence of scientific in-
quiry and modern, academic thought. Her-
meneutic anthropology and critical theory are
not in conflict. Rather, these structures of in-
quiry complement each other in terms of hav-
ing different scopes of application.
discussions, and methodological chapters on
remote sensing and locational analysis. In his
introduction, Trombold outlines the study of
ancient roads and provides a useful distinction
between informal routes (paths) and formal
routes (roads and causeways). Theoretical
chapters by Earle and Hassig deal with road
function. Earle examines roads in an evolu-
tionary framework, concluding that formal
roads in the New World nearly always served
political and ideological rather than economic