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A 5 page analysis that examines Cannibals and Kings: the Origins of Cultures by Marvin Harris. The writer demonstrates that Harris offers some intriguing ideas relative to the way that early man developed in response to environmental forces. Harris' book covers a wide-ranging variety of topics. In so doing, he often presents a perspective on history that is non-traditional. Nevertheless, Harris provides some very persuasive arguments that leave the reader with much to consider relative to the technologically oriented path of Western society. No additional sources cited.
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5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: KE9_99ck.rtf
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topics. In so doing, he often presents a perspective on history that is non-traditional. Nevertheless, Harris provides some very persuasive arguments that leave the reader with much to consider relative
to the technologically oriented path of Western society. For example, Harris feels that progress, alone, is an inappropriate explanation for social change. This assumption is quite reasonable when
you look on technological progress as the result of an initial cause?not the initial cause itself. Harris argues that much of what we refer to as "progress" in history is
the result of the environmental pressures that occur due to population growth. Harris argument in this regard is multi-layered. First of all, he points out that modern mans beliefs
that his primitive forebears had to struggle just to stay alive are erroneous. Citing Richard Lee of the University of Toronto, Harris states that the Bushmen of the Kalahari, whose
level of technology is roughly equivalent to that of the upper Paleolithic period, spend approximately three hours per day per adult on obtaining food (10). The evidence that
Harris presents substantiated his position that as long as "population density...is kept low, hunter-collectors can enjoy both leisure and high-quality diets" (11). So, if our stone age ancestors
did not give up their hunter-gather lifestyle and invent agriculture in order to improve their lifestyle, why did they do it? Harris proposes that the principle impetus behind this change
was the fact that stone age man became too successful at hunting. He states that the "implacable decline in the proportion of animal protein in the Tehuacin diet was the
result of a continuous series of intensifications and depletions, accompanied by improvement in the technology of hunting" (24). As it became harder and harder to hunt enough animals to feed
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