Abstract
Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945), in his novel An American Tragedy (1925), relates the personal history of a young man who is confronted with a series of crises. After much thoughtful reflection, Dreiser’s protagonist makes a number of perfectly rational and acceptable decisions regarding how to most appropriately deal with each conflict as it arises. The decisions he makes seem to the reader to be nearly unavoidable, and with great subtlety, the reader is led to concur with each decision. Regrettably, the choices made lead the youth to moral and financial ruin quite rapidly and inextricably. We, as the readers who agreed with the correctness of each of the youth’s decisions, are swept, sympathetically at least, to the same destination.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Braun, D. P., 1990, Selection and Evolution in Nonhierarchical Organization, in: The Evolution of Political Systems: Sociopolitics in Small-Scale Sedentary Societies (S. Upham, ed.), School of American Research, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 62–86.
Braun, D. P., 1991, Are There Cross-Cultural Regularities in Tribal Social Practices?, in: Between Bands and States (S. A. Gregg, ed.), Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 9:423-444.
Boas, F., 1974, A Franz Boas Reader: The Shaping of American Anthropology 1883–1911 (G. W. Stocking, Jr., ed.), University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Deetz, J., 1988, History and Archaeological Theory: Walter Taylor Revisited, American Antiquity 53:13–22.
Dreiser, T, 1925, An American Tragedy, Sun Dial Press, New York.
Dunnell, R. C., 1971, Systematics in Prehistory, The Free Press, New York.
Dunnell, R. C., 1980, Evolutionary Theory and Archaeology, in: Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Volume 3 (M. B. Schiffer, ed.), Academic Press, New York, pp. 38–99.
Dunnell, R. C., 1982, Science, Social Science, and Common Sense: The Agonizing Dilemma of Modern Archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Research 38:1–25.
Flannery, K. V., and Marcus, E. J. (eds.), 1983, The Cloud People, Academic Press, New York.
Hempel, C., 1959, The Logic of Functional Analysis, in: Symposium of Sociological Theory (L. Gross, ed.), Row, Peterson, New York, pp. 271–307.
Ingold, T, 1986, Evolution and Social Life, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Leonard, R. D., 1989, Resources Specialization, Population Growth, and Agricultural Production in the American Southwest, American Antiquity 54:491–503.
Leonard, R. D., and Jones, G. T., 1987, Elements of an Inclusive Evolutionary Model for Archaeology, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 6:199–219.
Mayr, E., 1988, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
O’Brien, M. J., and Holland, T. D., 1990, Variation, Selection, and the Archaeological Record, in: Archaeological Method and Theory, Volume 2 (M. B. Schiffer, ed.), University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Rindos, D., 1984, The Origins of Agriculture: An Evolutionary Perspective, Academic Press, Orlando.
Rindos, D., 1985, Darwinian Selection, Symbolic Variation, and the Evolution of Culture, Current Anthropology 26:65–88.
Sahlins, M. D., and Service, E. R. (eds.), 1960, Evolution of Culture, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
Steward, J. H., 1960, Review of “The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome,” by L. White, American Anthropologist 62:144–148.
Taylor, W. W., 1948, A Study of Archaeology, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.
Teltser, P. A., 1988, The Mississippian Archaeological Record on the Maiden Plain, Southeast Missouri: Local Variability in Evolutionary Perspective, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.
Trigger, B. G., 1978, Time and Tradition: Essays in Archaeological Interpretation, Columbia University Press, New York.
White, L., 1943, Energy and the Evolution of Culture, American Anthropologist 45:335–356.
White, L., 1957, Review of “Theory of Culture Change: The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution,” by J. H. Steward, American Anthropologist 59:540–542.
White, L., 1959, The Concept of Evolution in Anthropology, in: Evolution and Anthropology: A Centennial Appraisal (B. J. Meggers, ed.), The Anthropological Society of Washington, Washington, DC, pp. 106–125.
Young, T. C., 1988, Since Herodotus, Has History Been a Valid Concept?, American Antiquity 53:7–12.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Leonard, R.D. (1993). The Persistence of an Explanatory Dilemma in Contact Period Studies. In: Rogers, J.D., Wilson, S.M. (eds) Ethnohistory and Archaeology. Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1115-5_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1115-5_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-1117-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-1115-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive