Cannibals and Kings: Origins of Cultures (PB) (1991)

In this brilliant and profound study the distinguished American anthropologist Marvin Harris shows how the endless varieties of cultural behavior -- often so puzzling at first glance -- can be explained as adaptations to particular ecological conditions. His aim is to account for the evolution of cultural forms as Darwin accounted for the evolution of biological forms: to show how cultures adopt their characteristic forms in response to changing ecological modes.

[A] magisterial interpretation of the rise and fall of human cultures and societies.

-- Robert Lekachman, Washington Post Book World

Its persuasive arguments asserting the primacy of cultural rather than genetic or psychological factors in human life deserve the widest possible audience.

-- Gloria Levitas The New Leader

[An] original and...urgent theory about the nature of man and at the reason that human cultures take so many diverse shapes.

-- The New Yorker

Lively and controversial.

-- I. Bernard Cohen, front page, The New York Times Book Review