By ROBERT H. LOWIE, PH.D., Associate Curater, Anthropology American Museum of Natural History.
Publication Information : Book Title : Culture & Ethnology. Contributors : Robert H. Lowie – author. Publisher : Peter Smith. Place of Publication : New York. Publication Year : 1929.
PREFACE
This booklet is an attempt at popularization. The first four chapters are practically identical with as many lectures, delivered in 1917 as the January course offered by the Department of Anthropology of the American Museum of Natural History. The purpose of the January series, which was instituted in 1914 by Dr. P. E. Goddard and the writer, is to acquaint an audience of intelligent laymen with some of the results of modern ethnological work, the emphasis being on principles and problems, rather than on purely descriptive detail. The course, in short, occupies an intermediate position between technical discourses addressed to scientists and the more popular lectures which are designed to furnish mainly entertainment. Each year different topics have been chosen and several members of the staff have cooperated. Owing to the dearth of recent ethnological literature reflecting the position of American field-workers, and at the same time accessible to the interested outsider, I was easily persuaded to issue the 1917 lectures in the present form.