Freedom & Civilization
AuthorBronisław Malinowski
LanguageEnglish
SubjectFreedom
PublisherRoy Publishers
Publication date
1944
Media typePrint
Pages338
OCLC973861

Freedom & Civilization or Freedom and Civilization is a 1944 book by the Polish scholar Bronisław Malinowski.[1][2][3][4][5][6] It was based on Malinowski's lectures from his time at Yale University, and published posthumously by Roy Publishers, two years after Malinowski's death.[1]

I... believe that without freedom and democracy, civilization cannot survive."[7]

Bronisław Malinowski, 1944

Development

The book has been written during Malinowski's sabbatical in the United States, which became interrupted by the outbreak of World War II.[3] He became an outspoken critic of Nazi Germany, arguing that it posed to a threat to civilization, and he repeatedly urged American citizens to abandon their neutrality; as a result, his books became banned in Germany.[3][8]

Content

Freedom & Civilization consists of his lectures, given to American listeners at Yale University, on the topics of freedom, collected and edited by his wife Valetta Swann.[2][6]

Antonia Wenkart summarized the book in a 1945 review for the American Journal of Psychoanalysis. She noted that Malinowski discusses freedom as a natural and desirable state of all living beings. As society becomes more complex, freedom becomes dependent upon the use or abuse of authority by the leaders of a given society.[5]

Edmund Leach, reviewing this work for Nature, called it Malinowski's "political testament".[1] It has been described as an "anti-totalitarian" as Malinowski condemned such regimes as existing for the purpose of waging war, and while doing so, trampling on the concept of freedom.[2][3][9]

Vinay Kumar Srivastava writing for Sociological Bulletin in 1985 noted that the book is a "full length commentary on freedom".[3] Srivastava later noted that the book might have been better called Freedom and Culture to reflect its contents, also because Malinowski himself admits that advanced civilization is not necessary for freedom to exist.[2] He also summarized Malinowski's argument as follows: freedom is an essential element of culture and civilization. It emerges from culture and is essential for its continuation and development, and when freedom is threatened by an ideology (in particular, totalitarian), cultural progress falters. To prevent wars and totalitarian ideology, Malinowski suggested the formation of world government, in the form of a reinvented League of Nations.[2][6]

Reception

Compared to most other works by Malinowski, the book has been described as somewhat forgotten.[2]

Thomas I. Cook in 1944 in a review for the American Political Science Review found the book too concerned with criticizing totalitarianism to properly deal with "the disinterested analytical inquiry" into the topic at hand (i.e. the nature of freedom).[4]

In 1967 David Bidney called the book "the most comprehensive analysis of the concept of freedom in contemporary anthropological literature".[10]

Srivastava writing for Dialectical Anthropology in 1993 noted that the book occasionally veers away from scientific rigor into "a passionate appeal", but generally can be considered a valuable work on the relation between freedom and culture.[2]

Writing for Polish journal Przegląd Socjologiczny in 1947, Irena Turnau praised the book for its valuable analysis of the concept of freedom as well for its well developed critique of the necessity of war, but criticized Malinowski's solution (the formation of a world government) as unrealistic.[6] Both Turnau and Cook noted an inherent contradiction in Malinowski's argument that development of social control tools is both infringing upon freedom but also seen by Malinowski as a necessity to safeguard said freedom.[4][6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Leach, E. R. (March 1948). "Freedom and Civilization". Nature. 161 (4091): 457–458. Bibcode:1948Natur.161..457L. doi:10.1038/161457b0. ISSN 0028-0836. S2CID 4073908.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Srivastava, Vinay Kumar (1993). "Malinowski and a Reading of His "Freedom and Civilization"". Dialectical Anthropology. 18 (2): 177–204. doi:10.1007/BF01297695. ISSN 0304-4092. JSTOR 29790535. S2CID 144089300.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Srivastava, Vinay Kumar (March 1985). "Malinowski on Freedom & Civilization". Sociological Bulletin. 34 (1–2): 148–182. doi:10.1177/0038022919850107. ISSN 0038-0229. S2CID 171728097.
  4. 1 2 3 Cook, Thomas I. (October 1945). "Freedom and Civilization. By Bronislaw Malinowski. (New York: Roy Publishers. 1944. Pp. xiv, 338. $3.50.)". American Political Science Review. 39 (5): 1006–1008. doi:10.2307/1950041. ISSN 1537-5943. JSTOR 1950041. S2CID 147930977.
  5. 1 2 Wenkart, Antonia (1945). "Freedom and Civilization. By Bronislaw Malinowski. 338 pp. 1944. Roy Publishers. $3.50". American Journal of Psychoanalysis. 5: 70–71.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Turnau, Irena (1948). ""Freedom and Civilization", Bronisław Malinowski, London 1947 : [recenzja]" (PDF). Przegląd Socjologiczny (in Polish). 10: 705–707.
  7. ↑ Malinowski, Bronislaw (2015-07-24). Freedom and Civilization. Routledge. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-317-43813-7.
  8. ↑ Young, Michael W. (2015), "Malinowski, Bronislaw (1884–1942)", The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality, American Cancer Society, pp. 721–817, doi:10.1002/9781118896877.wbiehs279, ISBN 978-1-118-89687-7, retrieved 10 September 2021
  9. ↑ Young, Michael W. (1994-10-01). "Young Malinowski". Canberra Anthropology. 17 (2): 103–122. doi:10.1080/03149099409508423. ISSN 0314-9099.
  10. ↑ Bidney, David (1967). Theoretical Anthropology. Transaction Publishers. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-4128-3977-8.
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