Malinowski by Michael Young, Yale University Press, 拢30, ISBN 0300102941 Reviewed by Nick Saunders
A FORMIDABLE personality combined with a brilliant mind made a revolutionary of Bronislaw Malinowski. He was a towering figure in the new field of social anthropology during the early 20th century. Born in Poland in 1884, he changed anthropology forever.
He championed fieldwork and extended periods living with his subjects, immersed in their culture. He reasoned that this was the only way an outsider could appreciate the indigenous perspective, and understand the ways different people organised their world and their world view. He was fortunate to have begun his career just when armchair anthropology was falling out of favour.
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In this erudite biography of Malinowski鈥檚 early years, anthropologist Michael Young explores his fieldwork among the Mailu of Toulon Island and the natives of the Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea. This research was the basis of Malinowski鈥檚 path-breaking books, such as Argonauts of the Western Pacific, the intriguingly titled Coral Gardens and their Magic, and the now embarrassingly titled The Sexual Life of Savages.
Young reveals the man behind the iconic reputation. We read of the young Malinowski鈥檚 love life, his re-jigging of his journals, and his currying favour with other anthropologists in spite of having criticised their work in print. Weaving insight with meticulous research, this is a refreshing and stylish account of one of anthropology鈥檚 most influential thinkers and practitioners.