Marshall D. Sahlins

Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and of Social Sciences in the College, is presently doing research focused on the intersection of culture and history, especially as those play out in early-modern Pacific societies. He recently published a book of his anthropological and political essays ranging from the 60s through the 90s, and is working on two others: a set of studies in history and historiography and a multi-volume work on “The Polynesian War,” a history of the great Fijian War, 1843-1855. From time to time he drops these ethnographic particularities for high-flying cultural theory.

* Social Stratification in Polynesia (1958)
* Moala: Culture and Nature on a Fijian Island (1962)
* Evolution and Culture (ed., 1960)
* Stone Age Economics (1974
* Tribesmen (1968)
* The Use and Abuse of Biology (1976
* Culture and Practical Reason (1976
* Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities (1981
* Waiting For Foucault
* Islands of History
* Anahulu: The Anthropology of History in the Kingdom of Hawaii 1992
* How "Natives" Think: About Captain Cook, for Example (1995
* Culture in Practice
* Apologies to Thucydides: Understanding History as Culture and Vice Versa
* The Western Illusion of Human Nature
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Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and of Social Sciences in the College, is presently doing research focused on the intersection of culture and history, especially as those play out in early-modern Pacific societies. He recently published a book of his anthropological and political essays ranging from the 60s through the 90s, and is working on two others: a set of studies in history and historiography and a multi-volume work on “The Polynesian War,” a... (read more)