The Interpretation of Cultures

"As an anthropologist, philosopher, political scientist, literary critic, and all-around, all-star intellectual, Clifford Geertz helped a vast public make sense of the human condition."

"The eminent cultural anthropologist.... Mr. Geertz was considered a founder of interpretive, or symbolic, anthropology. But his influence extended far beyond anthropology to many of the social sciences, and his writing had a literary flair that distinguished him from most theorists and ethnographers."

"Clifford Geertz [was] an anthropologist whose imaginative studies of cultural groups from other countries changed the intellectual underpinnings of anthropology and other social sciences.... Dr. Geertz brought a distinctly literary sensibility to the study of anthropology with his sophisticated prose and vivid descriptions of social customs abroad.... Dr. Geertz's ornate, allusive accounts of other cultures came to define a new field of study called ethnography."

"Clifford Geertz is one of those rare scholars: the thinking person's liberal, who spurns easy banalities."

"Clifford Geertz was the foremost anthropologist of the past 40 years and perhaps the first of his trade to become world-famous.... His copious works first supplemented, then superseded the mighty labours of the founding fathers of the discipline."

"Clifford Geertz [was] arguably the best-known and most influential American anthropologist of the past several decades."

"One of the most articulate cultural anthropologists of this generation. Geertz has consistently attempted to clarify the meaning of 'culture' and to relate that concept to the actual behavior of individuals and groups."