Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/86

 74 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 22, 1920

theory to Plato, Koppers finds that Plato recognizes but two epochs, that of the hunting herders being distinguished from tillers of the soil. The earliest representative of the theory seems to be Dicaearchus, a disciple of Aristotle who died about 320 B.C. In his scheme the first period is that of a paradisaical golden age, while some other writers of antiquity substitute an animal-like existence. Later speculators inclined definitely to the familiar classification into a hunting, a pastoral, and an agricultural stage, such as is found in Adam Smith's epoch-making work. This scheme was first challenged in 1786 by I. Iselin, apparently a Swiss writer, who noted the absence of cattle among the Maori as contrary to the assumed sequence. He thus preceded A. von Humboldt, who utilized primarily American data in rejecting the necessity of an inter- mediate pastoral stage.

In the four decades following the middle of the nineteenth century the author recognizes two antagonistic tendencies, the evolutionary and the historical. Koppers is severe, though not unjust, in his treatment of Morgan and his slavish followers; he explains the belated retention of the three-stage theory in France by the preoccupation of French scholars with archaeological rather than ethnological data. However, Koppers insists that Hahn exaggerates in assuming that the acceptance of the old scheme was everywhere general during this period. For one thing, the older historical school of political economists, notably Hildebrandt, Knies, and Roscher, entertained sound methodological principles hostile to a priori constructions of stages. Miss Buckland distinguished a lower and a higher form of husbandry and assumed a more or less historical position. Among other things she associated women with primitive tillage, a conclusion already clearly set forth in Bachofen's famous work. Finally Nowacki and Ling Roth are mentioned as anticipating some of the results of modern ethnology.

R. H. L.

Americanization. Carol Aronovici. Keller Publishing Co., St. Paul,

1918. Pp. 62.

Dr. Aronovici's book on Americanization is an attempt to give a scientific basis to the problem of racial amalgamation.

In the first place, he shows that a deliberate Americanization plan, in the sense of an attempt to force the ideas and ideals of ourselves upon other peoples, is not essentially different in spirit qr aim from the Ger- manization schemes that we have vigorously denounced. The same nationality fever is largely responsible for both of them.

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