Leslie A. White: Evolution and Revolution in Anthropology by William J. Peace; Leslie A.

White
Review by: Robert L. Carneiro
The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Sep., 2005), pp. 628-629
Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
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628
Peace, William,J. LeslieA. Wliite: evolutionand
revolution in anthropology.xviii, 282 pp.,
illus., bibliogr. London, Lincoln: Univ.
Nebraska Press, 2004. ?41.95 (cloth)
Leslie White was a pivotal figure in mid-
twentieth-century anthropology. Entering
the field at a time when the discipline was
in a period of theoretical stagnation, he
almost single-handedly reinvigorated it,
largely through his championing of cultural
evolutionism.
William J. Peace, a resourceful and indefati-
gable researcher, has delved deep into the
archives and ferreted out many obscure details
of White s life and career which he has skil-
fully pieced together into a full-fledged bio-
graphy. In its pages we encounter not only the
formidable and embattled scholar, but also the
lonely, vulnerable, and secretive human being.
We see White, first, as a solitary and intro-
spective farm boy growing up in rural Kansas,
with traditional views of the world, which
were drastically changed, first by his experi?
ences in the US Navy, and then by his
encounter with radical politics. White's
acquaintance with Marxist writings led him to
join the Socialist Labor Party, an association
which lasted for decades but which he took
pains to conceal. It was in articles written
pseudonymously for The weekly people, the
SLP's periodical, that White first tried out his
ideas about cultural evolution. Only later did
he elaborate them in the pages of anthropo?
logical journals.
As Peace points out, White's involvement
with Marxism and the SLP played an impor?
tant role in shaping his views. Still, a biogra-
phy of 232 text pages might well have been
expanded to include a further exploration of
other aspects of White's work in the field of
anthropology.
Peace's extended account of White's field?
work in the Southwest is most enlightening.
It helps dispel the notion that he was only a
theorist, with no solid grounding in ethno?
graphic facts. It also highlights the difficulties
faced by ethnographers working in the South?
west, where native beliefs and practices were
carefully shielded from outsiders.
Once converted to evolutionism from his
earlier Boasian point of view, White began
an unrelenting campaign against the kind of
anthropology represented by Boas and his
disciples, with its distaste not only for evolu?
tionism but for theorizing in general. For his
troubles, he was branded a maverick, and for
years was almost a pariah in his profession.
Through the skilful interweaving of letters
that White exchanged with the editors of
several journals, Peace reveals that despite their
controversial nature - or, more likely, because
of it ? White's articles were actively solicited
by these editors in order to spice up the pages
of their journals.
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BOOK REVIEWS
Turning to White's academic life, Peace tells
of his prickly relations with a succession of
deans at the University of Michigan, where he
taught; men he had discomfited not only by
his Marxist leanings but also by his outspoken
critique of religion, which had aroused the ire
of the Catholic Church.
Peace's biography of White is especially
revealing of the events and experiences in his
private life. (Indeed, the book is more expan-
sive and successful in depicting his personal
struggles than in assessing his professional
attainments.) The section dealing with the
later years ofWhite's life, especially his descent
into the maelstrom following the death of his
wife, Mary, is indeed moving. A letter that
White wrote to his close friend Harry Elmer
Barnes, shortly after Mary died, which Peace
quotes in extenso, is extraordinarily poignant.
While White was relentlessly single-minded
in his pursuit of Boas, it was by no means true
that he was incapable of changing his mind.
Two revealing passages quoted by Peace afford
evidence of this. Thus, over the course of a
decade, we see the passionate activist trans?
formed into the detached observer. In 1936,
writing in The weekly people, White asserted
with revolutionary fervour, 'The time is now
near at hand when action will be the order
of the day' (p. 97). Similarly, an entry in his
journal, dated three years later, called for the
social scientist to throw light upon the culture
process 'so that mankind may plan and control
[it] consciously and effectively' (p. 69). How
different are these sentiments from the tone
struck a decade later in White's article 'Man's
control over civilization: an anthropocentric
illusion'!
It seems to me that in writing this biogra?
phy Peace made a conscious choice to focus
on the 'inaccessible' White - on incidents in
his life and career previously little known or
altogether hidden, which only his own
diligent sleuthing had brought to light.
Correspondingly, there is less emphasis on the
'accessible' White, the White already well
known to anthropology through his extensive
writings.
Peace also focuses more on the controver?
sies that White engaged in than on the
contributions that he made to his profession.
Unstinting as he is in describing White's
polemics, he says a good deal less about the
substance of these polemics and the arguments
and evidence he adduced to support them.
One element that I found missing from this
biography was any real examination ofWhite's
other major scholarly preoccupation, namely
culturology. Peace all but ignores White's most
famous book, The science of culture,in which
he expounded culturology most vigorously
and eloquently. His discussion of this work is
limited to recounting the reception it received
at the hands of the Socialist Labor Party.This
episode is certainly illuminating, but it is
 BOOK REVIEWS
presented at the expense of any serious con?
sideration of the contents of this book or any
assessment of its impact on anthropology.
Finally, I cannot refrain from noting that
the University of Nebraska Press has done the
author - and the reader ? a great disservice
by setting this book in such tiny type that
it repels reading rather than inviting it.
Nevertheless, for anyone seeking a painstak-
ingly researched, meticulously crafted, and
engagingly told account of the life of a major
figure in twentieth-century anthropology, this
biography of Leslie White will prove reveal?
ing and rewarding.
Robert L. Carneiro
American Museum of Natural History
Watanabe, John M. & Edward F. Fischer
(eds). Pluralizing ethnography:comparisonand
representationin Maya cultures,histories,and
identities. ix, 353 pp., maps, figs, tables,
illus., bibliogr. Oxford, Santa Fe: James
Currey/School of American Research
Press, 2004. ?50.00 (cloth), ?19.95
(paper)
This volume focuses on Mayas of southeast-
ern Mexico and highland Guatemala, regions
with a long history of intensive anthropolog?
ical research. Yet the book's significance in
demonstrating the relevance of a comparative
approach to understanding cultures and
identities extends well beyond the Maya
region. The chapters 'compare historical and
institutional linkages between global forces
and contrasting local places' (p. 4). They
explore differences across space - comparing
communities, regions, and nations ? and time,
demonstrating both 'Maya cultural distinctive-
ness and diversity' (p. 6). The volume includes
an introduction, eight chapters by anthropol?
ogists (many with decades of field experience
in Mexico or Guatemala), and a conclusion by
a non-Mayanist.
A chapter by John Watanabe compares
Maya-state relations in Mexico and Guatemala
during the post-independence period to
explain the differences in national power
structures. Victoria Bricker examines the use
of Mayan languages and their link to ethnic
identity in two regions: the Yucatan and
highland Chiapas. Christine Kray compares
the Protestant Summer Institute of Linguis?
tics' project of Bible translation in south-
eastern Mexico and highland Guatemala. She
finds that the project was more successful in
Mexico because it converged with the gov?
ernment indigenista policy of incorporating
indigenous people into the nation through
assimilation and modernization.
Chapters 5 through 7 focus on indigenous
identity and politics in Chiapas, Mexico, and
make historical and regional comparisons. In
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629
chapter 6, Gary Gossen examines Mayas'
changing relationship to the Mexican state in
the past twenty years, using the rituals carried
out by Tzotzils of San Juan Chamula as a case
study.June Nash's chapter compares the Maya
movement for autonomy in three regions of
Chiapas and contrasts Maya social movements
in Chiapas to those in Guatemala. Jan Rus's
chapter provides an important discussion
of anthropological scholarship on Mayas of
Chiapas from the 1950s to the present and the
political implications of this work. Rus
notes that from the 1950s to the 1970s US
researchers described Mayan communities as
isolated from broader political and economic
forces, suiting Mexican indigenistapolicies that
saw no need to address economic exploitation
of indigenous peoples. In contrast, later work
by revisionist scholars (Mexican and others)
placed indigenous peoples' relationship to
larger economic systems at the centre of their
research.
Chapters 8 and 9, by Victor Montejo and
Edward Fischer, respectively, focus on the
impact of globalization on contemporary
Mayan communities of Guatemala. Montejo
describes how traditionalists struggle to main?
tain their cultural practices in the context of
globalization in the highland community of
Jakaltek. With transnational migration and the
cultivation of cash crops for export, many
have turned away from traditional practices.
Traditionalists view this as 'angering the
ancestors' and have revived or re-created old
ceremonies. While Montejo focuses on glob-
alization's negative impact - for example, the
destruction of land and distancing from tradi?
tional practices - Fischer describes both the
positive and negative impact of globalization.
Through the case study of Tecpan, he portrays
a 'localized globality' in which Mayas incor-
porate transnational elements into local
practices. He notes that Mayas are not victims
of'outside forces', but use new forms of pro?
duction to supplement traditional subsistence
farming (p. 287).
In the conclusion Richard Fox notes that
the book's strength lies in 'showing whether,
how, and why continuities exist in social
behavior and belief at the local level' (p. 291).
As contemporary anthropologists increasingly
focus on changes resulting from capitalism and
globalization, Fox notes the importance of
examining the reasons why continuities persist
or are created, even in the face of global
forces. The book's contributors show the per?
sisting relevance of Mayan language, ritual,
belief, and other practices, even in the context
of significant political and economic changes.
Although the volume makes mention of the
important role played by Mayan cultural
activists and scholars in self-representation and
includes one chapter by a Mayan anthropolo?
gist, the book would have benefited from
additional contributions by Mayan scholars.