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Title: Now We Are Civilized by Charles M. Leslie ISBN: 0-313-22847-7 Publisher: Greenwood Press Reprint Pub. Date: 03 April, 1981 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $60.95

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Average Customer Rating: 2 (1 review)

Rating: 2
Summary: No wind in these palm trees
Comment: Hula hoops. Sack dresses. Tail fins. Juke boxes. Penny loafers. Bee bop a lula. All these words evoke a certain time because each era produces its own fashions and styles that seem so central then, but later disappear in favor of others. That's the way it is in Anthropology too. Over its history, which isn't all that long if we compare it to other fields, various styles of inquiry and various areas of concern have come and gone. Early in the 20th century the main argument was between diffusionists (who thought that culture spread out from a few major centers) and those who believed in separate development. Then, functionalism came in. Anthropologists looked for the function of everything, including myth, symbol, religion, and ritual. They made lists of cultural "traits" and constructed models. Later came structuralism, influenced strongly by Claude Levi Strauss, and post-structuralism, which is still in vogue today.

Lewis did his Ph.D thesis field in Mitla, a small Zapotec Indian town not far from Oaxaca, Mexico. When he returned to Chicago, where the University was the center of American anthropology at the time, his advisor told him that he hadn't really found anything new; many people had already done research in Mesoamerican towns. So, to break into print, Lewis tried to focus on two things instead of writing a standard 1950s ethnography. First, he concentrated on describing the Mitleños' world view (general way they viewed life, large belief system encompassing more than religion) and secondly, he attempted to link the writing anthropology to philosophy and literature. It is my opinion, given from a perspective of nearly 50 years later, when styles in writing anthropology have changed drastically, that he did not succeed on either count. It may be because he tried to do all this in 91 pages!

To describe the world view of a people you need exceedingly "thick" description. Lewis', on the other hand, is very thin. As he himself admits, he did not try to make readers hear "the wind in the palm trees", nor do we find chickens being killed for divination, their blood spattering the squatting diviner. There are no gongs, no rubies, no spears and no violent tropical storms. It's rather pallid reading. The attempt to connect his work to the famous works of anthropology, to the ideas of Bergson, Baudelaire, and Kenneth Burke, as well as Benedict, Firth, Hoebel, Leach, Malinowski, and Mead is also very brief. However, the last few pages of comments that bring together many ideas are the most interesting in this lightweight book that reflects the fashions of a different era. [This review is based on the 1960 edition.]