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

''Lively and controversial.''

-- I. Bernard Cohen, front page, The New York Times Book Review