Michael W. Young – författare

Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942) was one of the most colorful and charismatic social scientists of the twentieth century. His contributions as a founding father of social anthropology and his complex personality earned him international notoriety and near-mythical status. This landmark book presents a vivid portrait of Malinowski’s early life, from his birth in Cracow to his departure in 1920 from the Trobriand Islands of the South Pacific. At the age of 36, he had already created the innovative fieldwork methods and techniques that would secure his intellectual legacy.Drawing on an exceptionally rich array of primary documents, including Malinowski’s letters and unpublished diaries and manuscripts, Michael Young provides significant new information about the anthropologist’s personality, private life, and career. The author describes Malinowski’s restless life of travel, connections with intellectuals and artists, Nietzschean belief in his own destiny, and legendary fieldwork. The singular man who emerges from these pages fascinates on every level—as a volatile friend and lover, a provocative colleague, a passionate diarist, and a brilliant thinker who pioneered radical change in the field of anthropology.

Magicians of Manumanua: Living Myth in Kalauna takes readers on a profound journey into the rich cultural and political life of Kalauna, a village on Goodenough Island, now often referred to by its traditional name, Nidula. The narrative begins with the author’s first encounter with the village in 1966, capturing the striking physical and social landscape that sets Kalauna apart. Through the lens of leadership and mythology, the book unfolds the intricate interplay of personal identity, lineage, and communal rituals, focusing on the pivotal concept of manumanua—the ritual practice of anchoring prosperity and banishing famine. The exploration is deeply rooted in Kalauna's myths, legends, and biographical accounts of key figures like Iyahalina and his peers, who use these narratives to assert social authority and lineage legitimacy.Structured as a sequence of overlapping life stories, the book connects mythological origins to contemporary political struggles, emphasizing the enduring significance of Kalauna’s mythology in shaping leadership and community identity. Chapters delve into individual and collective biographies, starting with the sun god Honoyeta and moving through historical figures such as the despotic Malaveyoyo and modern leaders like Iyahalina. The study highlights the myths' dual role as validation for ritual practices and as a framework for personal and communal identity. Ultimately, the book reveals a "serpentine" historical pattern, where mythology, leadership, and political ideology interweave to sustain Kalauna's cultural heritage, providing a nuanced perspective on the lived experience of myths in a Melanesian community.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1983.

Magicians of Manumanua: Living Myth in Kalauna takes readers on a profound journey into the rich cultural and political life of Kalauna, a village on Goodenough Island, now often referred to by its traditional name, Nidula. The narrative begins with the author’s first encounter with the village in 1966, capturing the striking physical and social landscape that sets Kalauna apart. Through the lens of leadership and mythology, the book unfolds the intricate interplay of personal identity, lineage, and communal rituals, focusing on the pivotal concept of manumanua—the ritual practice of anchoring prosperity and banishing famine. The exploration is deeply rooted in Kalauna's myths, legends, and biographical accounts of key figures like Iyahalina and his peers, who use these narratives to assert social authority and lineage legitimacy.Structured as a sequence of overlapping life stories, the book connects mythological origins to contemporary political struggles, emphasizing the enduring significance of Kalauna’s mythology in shaping leadership and community identity. Chapters delve into individual and collective biographies, starting with the sun god Honoyeta and moving through historical figures such as the despotic Malaveyoyo and modern leaders like Iyahalina. The study highlights the myths' dual role as validation for ritual practices and as a framework for personal and communal identity. Ultimately, the book reveals a "serpentine" historical pattern, where mythology, leadership, and political ideology interweave to sustain Kalauna's cultural heritage, providing a nuanced perspective on the lived experience of myths in a Melanesian community.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1983.

The Melanesians of Goodenough Island, off the eastern coast of New Guinea, have developed the principle of gift-giving to an extraordinary degree. Instead of resorting to arms in their quarrels or demanding compensation for offences, they present enemies and offenders with pigs and yams in order to shame them. This custom of coercive gift-giving operates at various organizational levels and through two main institutional forms: competitive food exchange and festivals. Dr Young analyses in depth the social and political structure of a single village, dealing in detail with its system of social control and those vexed topics of Melanesian ethnography - leadership and sorcery. Of particular interest is the author's description of the configuration of values which makes food-giving-to-shame meaningful to the Goodenough Islander for whom 'happiness is a rotting yam', and the worst evil 'hunger-producing sorcery'. The careful use of case material gives vivid insights into the lifestyle, world view and humanity of these proud and fractious people.

Bronislaw Malinowski is one of the founding fathers of modern social anthropology and the innovator of the technique of prolonged and intensive fieldwork. His writings about the Trobriand Islands of Papua were in their time the most formative influence on the work of British social anthropologists and are of perennial interest and importance. They produced a revolution in the aims and field techniques of social anthropologists, and the method he created is that now normally used by anthropologists in the field. Malinowski’s field material remains compulsory reading for students. First published in 1979, this book draws from the major monographs of Malinowski to compile a selection of his writings on the Trobriand Islanders. In presenting a concise Trobriand ethnography in one volume, the author gives balanced coverage of economic life, kinship, marriage and land tenure, and to the system of ceremonial exchange known as the Kula. He also provides, in an introductory essay, a critical assessment of Malinowski the ethnographer, and gives a brief account of the Trobriands in a modern perspective.