Apologies to Thucydides: Understanding History as Culture and Vice Versa

Marshall Sahlins uses two seemingly unrelated episodes in history to question the narrative form of historiography with which we all grew up. He compares the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Greece with the nineteenth century conflict between Rewa and Bau, two Fijian kingdoms. Both featured an expansive, sea-going empire versus a more insular, land-oriented opponent. Sahlins makes a very good case for the conflicts being driven by geography and culture, more than great men. He uses the two wars to illustrate the differences between narrative history and the more modern cultural view. He even recounts the 1951 National League pennant race between the Dodgers and the Giants to illustrate his point. Although I prefer narrative history, with its seeming movers and shakers, and its chronological descriptions of events. I have to admit that Sahlins makes very good points for "Understanding History as Culture and Vice Versa" as he subtitled this book. My only real complaint, and this extends to most works of this genre, is its intensive use of sociological jargon. Some sentences are simply unintelligible to a sociologically untrained, but otherwise literate reader. That said, this is a good read, and certainly expanded my horizons.