Richard Brian Ferguson (born 1951) is an American anthropologist.[1] He is an authority on warfare.[2]
Life
editRichard Brian Ferguson was born in New York, New York on July 19, 1951. He spent his childhood in upstate New York.[citation needed]
Ferguson attended Columbia University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in anthropology in 1974. During this time he was involved in activism opposing the Vietnam war. He earned his doctorate in anthropology from Columbia University in 1988, with dissertation field work in Puerto Rico.[3]
Career
editFerguson is now a tenured professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University Newark. His expertise lies in cultural anthropology, the anthropology of war, ethnic conflict, state-tribe interaction, policing, and Puerto Rico. He is part of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology as well as Global Urban Studies/Urban Systems. He has also served on the board of governors of the New York Academy of Sciences.[3] Ferguson has published many papers critical of biological perspectives in anthropology, especially explanations of war.[4]
Publications
edit- The Anthropology of War (with Leslie Farragher) (1988)
- Explaining War (1990)
- When Worlds Collide (1992)
- Infrastructural Determinism (1995)
- Yanomami Warfare: A Political History (1995)[5]
- A Paradigm for the Study of War and Society (1999)
- Violent Conflict and Control of the State (2003)
- Archaeology, Cultural Anthropology, and the Origins and Intensification of War (2006)
- War Before History (2008)
- Ten Points on War (2008)
- Chimpanzees, War, and History: Are Men Born to Kill? (2023)
References
edit- ^ "R. Brian Ferguson's Website".
- ^ "War Scholar Critiques New Study of Roots of Violence".
- ^ a b "Profile: R. Brian Ferguson". Rutgers University. Archived from the original on 2016-03-13. Retrieved 2016-03-12.
- ^ Ferguson, R. Brian (September 2018). "Why We Fight". Scientific American. 319 (3): 76–81.
- ^ Rivière, Peter (1996). "R. Brian Ferguson, Yanomami Warfare: A Political History (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, in association with the School of American Research, 1995), pp. xiv + 449, $55.00, $27.50 pb". Journal of Latin American Studies. 28 (1): 262–263. doi:10.1017/S0022216X00012943. S2CID 144940249.