What Book had the biggest influence on you?

[Petrushka]

255. Cannibals and Kings: Origins of Cultures -- by Marvin Harris

Reviews --- From the inside flap:

In this brilliant and profound study the distinguished American anthropologist Marvin Harris shows how the endless varieties of cultural behavior -- often so puzzling at first glance -- can be explained as adaptations to particular ecological conditions. His aim is to account for the evolution of cultural forms as Darwin accounted for the evolution of biological forms: to show how cultures adopt their characteristic forms in response to changing ecological modes.

"[A] magisterial interpretation of the rise and fall of human cultures and societies."

-- Robert Lekachman, Washington Post Book World



"Its persuasive arguments asserting the primacy of cultural rather than genetic or psychological factors in human life deserve the widest possible audience."

-- Gloria Levitas The New Leader



"[An] original and...urgent theory about the nature of man and at the reason that human cultures take so many diverse shapes."

-- The New Yorker


http://www.amazon.com/dp/067972849X/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=3522187618&ref=pd_sl_yx7dj7b55_pp