Folkways (Masterplots, Definitive Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: William Graham Sumner
- First Published: 1907
- Type of Work: Political, sociological, and anthropological theory
- Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Sociology, Anthropology
- Subjects: Philosophy or philosophers, Class conflict, Politics, Socialism, Nature, Slavery or slaves, Human behavior, Sociology, Social sciences
Critical Evaluation:
Folkways, written by a professor of political and social science at Yale University, was one of the powerfully influential books on American thought during the first decade of the twentieth century. The book was an effort to soften the impact of and to justify the implications of Darwinian laissez faire philosophy. As such it was essentially conservative and ran against the growing tide of social and political agitation thrusting toward reform. Because it seemed to be so widely and deeply based on comparative anthropology and sociology, it appeared...
[The entire page is 1301 words long]
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