Modernity and Mind

In sixteen landmark essays Anthony F. C. Wallace illuminates the interconnections between cognition and culture and the formative social conditions of the modern world. Probing the psychological reality (or realities) of culture, Wallace offers incisive analyses of the cognitive foundations of kinship terms and the ability of cultures, past and present, to process complexity. He also examines whether beavers have a culture and reveals how the mazeway of modern American culture equips and enables a routine drive to work.

In the volume’s second section, Wallace interrogates the consequences of revolutionary changes in labor, technology, and society in the modern world. A series of essays details the multifaceted, pervasive impact of the Industrial Revolution on the coal-mining communities of Rockdale and Saint Clair, Pennsylvania. He also considers the implications of the disaster-prone coal-mining industry for risky technological enterprises today, such as nuclear power plants. An in-depth comparison between the administrative structures of a modern university and Iroquois-Seneca leadership rounds out this volume.