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Primitive Culture is an 1871 book by Edward Burnett Tylor. In his book, Tylor debates the relationship between "primitive" societies and "civilized" societies, a key theme in 19th century anthropological literature.
Tylor often likens primitive cultures to "children", and sees culture and the mind of humans as progressive. His work was a refutation of the theory of social degeneration, which was popular at the time. [7] At the end of Primitive Culture, Tylor writes, "The science of culture is essentially a reformers' science." [24]
Frazer's interest in social anthropology was aroused by reading E. B. Tylor's Primitive Culture (1871) and was also encouraged by his friend, the biblical scholar William Robertson Smith, who was comparing elements of the Old Testament with early Hebrew folklore.
Robert Ranulph Marett (13 June 1866 – 18 February 1943) was a British ethnologist and a proponent of the British Evolutionary School of cultural anthropology.Founded by Marett's older colleague, Edward Burnett Tylor, it asserted that modern primitive societies provide evidence for phases in the evolution of culture, which it attempted to recapture via comparative and historical methods.
Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917), a pioneer of anthropology, focused on the evolution of culture worldwide, noting that culture is an important part of every society and that it is also subject to a process of evolution. He believed that societies were at different stages of cultural development and that the purpose of anthropology was to ...
Edward Tylor was the epitome of that and did very little of his own research. [29] [33] Cultural evolution is also criticized for being ethnocentric; cultures are still seen as attempting to emulate western civilization. Under ethnocentricity, primitive societies are said to not yet be at the cultural levels of other Western societies. [33] [34]
The Mind of Primitive Man is a 1911 book by anthropologist Franz Boas which takes a critical look at the concept of primitive culture. [1] The work challenged widely held racist and eugenic claims about race and intelligence , particularly white supremacy .
One of the earliest articulations of the anthropological meaning of the term "culture" came from Sir Edward Tylor: "Culture, or civilization, taken in its broad, ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."