Scenes from the High Desert:
Julian Steward's Life and Theory

University of Illinois Press, 2003

Honoring Virginia Kerns

Julian Steward (1902-72) is best remembered in American anthropology as the creator of cultural ecology, a theoretical approach that has influenced generations of archaeologists and cultural anthropologists. This generous biography by Virginia Kerns, professor of Anthropology at the College of William and Mary, considers the intellectual and emotional influences of Steward's remarkable career and provides insights into the development of anthropology during his lifetime.

Scenes from the High Desert locates the concept of cultural ecology as a social theory in the context of Steward's lived experience and personal construction of meaning. Kerns explores the scholar's early life in the American West, his continued attachments to western landscapes and inhabitants, his research with Native Americans, and the writing of his classic work, Theory of Culture Change. Extracting the personal and professional experiences that shaped his ideas on labor, technology, and the natural world, Kerns focuses particularly on the ideas and experiences that gave rise to Steward's theory of cultural ecology and most influenced American anthropology.

Through her exploration of Steward's career and his particular interest in men's labor, Kerns illustrates how Steward's concept of the patrilineal band was central to his intellectual work and grounded in his own social experiences and autobiographical memory, especially memories of place. With fluid prose and rich detail, the book captures the essence and breadth of Steward's career while carefully measuring the ways he reinforced the male-centered structure of mid-twentieth-century American anthropology.

Also Winner of the 2003 Evans Biography Award.