Leslie White

Leslie Alvin White (January 19, 1900, Salida, Colorado – March 31, 1975, Lone Pine, California) was an American anthropologist known for his advocacy of the theories on cultural evolution, sociocultural evolution, and especially neoevolutionism, and for his role in creating the department of anthropology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor.^[1] White was president of the American Anthropological Association (1964).^[2]

Teaching at University of Buffalo marked a turning point in White's thinking. White developed an interest in Marxism in 1929. He visited the Soviet Union and on his return joined the Socialist Labor Party, writing articles under the pseudonym "John Steel" for their newspaper.^[3]

Over time, White's views became framed in opposition to that of Boasians, with whom he was institutionally at odds. This could take on personal overtones: White referred to Boas's prose style as "corny" in the American Journal of Sociology. Robert Lowie, a proponent of Boas's work, referred to White's work as "a farrago of immature metaphysical notions", shaped by "the obsessive power of fanaticism [which] unconsciously warps one's vision."^[4]

White spoke of culture as a general human phenomenon and claimed not to speak of 'cultures' in the plural. His theory, published in 1959 in The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome, rekindled the interest in social evolutionism and is counted prominently among the neoevolutionists. He believed that culture–meaning the total of all human cultural activity on the planet–was evolving. White differentiated three components of culture: technological, sociological, and ideological. He argued that it was the technological component which plays a primary role or is the primary determining factor responsible for the cultural evolution. His materialist approach is evident in the following quote: "man as an animal species, and consequently culture as a whole, is dependent upon the material, mechanical means of adjustment to the natural environment."^[5] This technological component can be described as material, mechanical, physical, and chemical instruments, as well as the way people use these techniques. White's argument on the importance of technology goes as follows:^[6]

1. Technology is an attempt to solve the problems of survival.
2. This attempt ultimately means capturing enough energy and diverting it for human needs.
3. Societies that capture more energy and use it more efficiently have an advantage over other societies.
4. Therefore, these different societies are more advanced in an evolutionary sense.

• List of important publications in anthropology

• Leslie A. White: Evolution and Revolution in Anthropology by William Peace. University of Nebraska Press, 2004 (the definitive biography of White).
• Richard Beardsley. An appraisal of Leslie A. White's scholarly influence. American Anthropologist 78:617–620, 1976.
• Jerry D. Moore. Leslie White: Evolution Emergent. Chapter 13 of Visions of Culture. pp. 169–180. Alta Mira, 1997.
• Moses, Daniel Noah (2009). The Promise of Progress: The Life and Work of Lewis Henry Morgan. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.
• Elman Service. Leslie Alvin White, 1900–1975. American Anthropologist 78:612–617, 1976.
• The Leslie White Papers – Finding guide and information about Leslie White's papers at the Bentley Historical library.