Anthropologist Leslie white (1900-1975) was one of the foremost advocates promoting the idea of cultural evolution at the time when much of the anthropological field shied away from the concept. He presented his major ideas on the subject in The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome and had planned to follow up that work with a volume titled Recent Trends and Future Probabilities: 1958-2058, but would up narrowing his focus from cultural development in general to the evolution of the culture of capitalism from its origins to 20th century liberal democracy and would continue to work on the unfinished volume, Modern Capitalist Culture, until his death. This is an abridged version of the unfinished 1200-page manuscript. The editors have sought to make the abridgement concise, yet comprehensive, and to highlight those observations of White's that retain the most applicability. The full manuscript is also available from Left Coast Press. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
