Melville Jean Herskovits (redirected from Melville J. Herskovits)

Herskovits, Melville Jean 

Born Sept. 10, 1895, in Bellefontaine, Ohio; died Feb. 25, 1963, in Evanston, 111. American anthropologist.

Herskovits’ chief works deal with the general anthropology and cultures of the African peoples and the Negroes of America. Beginning in 1930, Herskovits conducted anthropological studies of areas along the Guinean coast of Africa and in Latin America. He studied the problems of acculturation and the economy and culture of primitive societies, emphasizing the independent value of the cultures of all the peoples (the theory of cultural relativism).

WORKS

Acculturation: The Study of Culture Contact. New York, 1938.
Economic Anthropology. New York, 1952.
Cultural Anthropology. New York, 1955.

REFERENCE

Artanovskii, S. N. “‘Kul’turnyi’ reliativizm v amerikanskoi etnografii.” In Sovremennaia amerikanskaia etnografiia. Moscow, 1963.