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Anthony F.C. Wallace
(15 Apr 1923 - 5 Oct 2015)
Canadian-American psychological anthropologist and historian known for his ethnohistorical accounts of native Ameerican lives, and studies of the social and cultural changes through the Industrial Revolution.
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Science Quotes by Anthony F.C. Wallace (8 quotes)
[Thomas Jefferson] played a major role in one of the great tragedies of recent World history, a tragedy which he so elegantly mourned: the dispossession and decimation of the first Americans.
— Anthony F.C. Wallace
In 'Preface', Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans (1999), viii. In this book, Wallace writes about the (im-?)balance between Jefferson’s intention to be a benevolent leader, and having a great national appetite for expansion of the American nation.
American archaeology has always attracted lots of amateurs ... They were digging up Indian pottery all over the place.
— Anthony F.C. Wallace
From Robert S. Grumet, 'An Interview with Anthony F. C. Wallace', Ethnohistory (Winter 1998), 45, No. 1, 109.
Culture can be regarded as a constitution of recipes for behavior … which are taught and learned on various levels of awareness; not all of the individuals in any society know all these recipes; and many of the recipes are alternative to one another.
— Anthony F.C. Wallace
Acknowledging the significance of variation for the culture concept. In The Modal Personality Structure of the Tuscarora Indians As Revealed by the Rorschach Test (1952), 61-62.
I intend to interpret Tuscarora values, beliefs, and institutions not as relics of the past, not as a step on the acculturation ladder to the successful emulation of White culture … but as a viable way of life that can stand on its own as an alternative among other American life styles.
— Anthony F.C. Wallace
Expressing his aim as author in Tuscarora: A History (2012), 27-28.
It’s important to always bear in mind that life occurs in historical time. Everyone in every culture lives in some sort of historical time, though it might not be perceived in the same way an outside observer sees it. It’s an interesting question, “When is now?” “Now” can be drawn from some point like this hour, this day, this month, this lifetime, or this generation. “Now” can also have occurred centuries ago; things like unfair treaties, the Trail of Tears, and the Black Hawk War, for instance, remain part of the “Now” from which many Native Americans view their place in time today. Human beings respond today to people and events that actually occurred hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Ethnohistorians have played a major role in showing how now is a social concept of time, and that time is part of all social life. I can only hope that their work will further the understanding that the study of social life is a study of change over time.
— Anthony F.C. Wallace
From Robert S. Grumet, 'An Interview with Anthony F. C. Wallace', Ethnohistory (Winter 1998), 45, No. 1, 127.
Our attention will focus on the institutional context of technological innovation rather than … individual inventors, for the actual course of work that leads to the conception and use of technology always involves a group that has worked for a considerable period of time on the basic idea before success is achieved.
— Anthony F.C. Wallace
In The Social Context of Innovation: Bureaucrats, Families, and Heroes in the Early Industrial Revolution as Foreseen in Bacon’s New Atlantis (1982, 2003), 3.
The significant thing about the Darbys and coke-iron is not that the first Abraham Darby “invented” a new process but that five generations of the Darby connection were able to perfect it and develop most of its applications.
— Anthony F.C. Wallace
In Essays on Culture Change (2003), Vol. 2, 200.
You can't really discover the most interesting conflicts and problems in a subject until you've tried to write about them. At that point, one discovers discontinuities in the data, perhaps, or in one's own thinking; then the act of writing forces you to work harder to resolve these contradictions.
— Anthony F.C. Wallace
From Robert S. Grumet, 'An Interview with Anthony F. C. Wallace', Ethnohistory (Winter 1998), 45, No. 1, 109.
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In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
