Edward Burnett Tylor

Contribution
Tylor (1832-1917) established the theoretical principles of Victorian anthropology, in Primitive
Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art,
and Custom (1871), by adapting evolutionary theory to the study of human society.
Work
Tylor's notion is best described in his most famous work, the two-volume Primitive Culture. The
first volume, The Origins of Culture, deals with ethnography including social evolution,
linguistics, and myth. The second volume, Religion in Primitive Culture, deals mainly with his
interpretation of animism.

William Graham Sumner

Contribution
As a sociologist, his major accomplishments were developing the concepts of diffusion,
folkways, and ethnocentrism.
Work
Sumner's work with folkways led him to conclude that attempts at government-mandated reform
were useless.
 Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown
Contribution and Work
Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown (January 17, 1881 – October 24, 1955) was a British social
anthropologist who developed the theory of "structural-functionalism," and is often regarded,
together with Bronislaw Malinowski, as the father of modern social anthropology.

Friedrich Engels

Contribution
Known for his collaboration with Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels helped define modern
communism. Friedrich Engels is the co-author of The Communist Manifesto, an 1848 pamphlet
regarded as one of the world's most influential political documents. Engels died on Aug. 5, 1895,
in London, England.
Work
Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx in 1848. He also wrote under
the pseudonym of Friedrich Oswald. Engels edited the second and third volumes of Karl Marx's
Das Kapital after Marx's death. Along with Marx, Engels formed the basis for the modern
communist movement.
 Thorstein Bunde Veblen
Contribution and Work
In his best-known book, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Veblen coined the concepts of
conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. Historians of economics regard Veblen as the
founding father of the institutional economics school.

Bronisław Malinowski
Contribution

Malinowski was instrumental in transforming British social anthropology from an

ethnocentric discipline concerned with historical origins and based on the writings
of travelers, missionaries, and colonial administrators to one concerned with
understanding the interconnections between various institutions and based on
fieldwork, where the goal was to “grasp the native’s point of view” (Malinowski
1984, p. 25, cited under Fieldwork and Ethnography).
Work

A prolific writer, Malinowski tackled some of the most important and controversial
topics of his day: economics, religion, family, sex, psychology, colonialism, and
war. He insisted that a proper understanding of culture required viewing these
various aspects in context.
 Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin
Contribution
Sorokin's academic writings are extensive; he wrote 37 books and more than 400 articles.[3] His
controversial theories of social process and the historical typology of cultures are expounded in
Social and Cultural Dynamics (4 vol., 1937–41; rev. and abridged ed. 1957) and many other
works.
Work
Sorokin's work addressed three significant theories: social differentiation, social stratification,
and social conflict.

Talcott Parsons
Contribution
He is the father of structuralist-functionalism, and he is credited for introducing European
sociology to the US by translating important texts of European scholars.
Work
He advocated a structural-functional analysis, a study of the ways in which the interrelated and
interacting units that form the structures of a social system contribute to the development and
maintenance of that system. Other works by Parsons include Essays in Sociological Theory
(1949; rev. ed