Eric Robert Wolf was an anthropologist, best known for his studies of peasants, Latin America, and his advocacy of Marxian perspectives within anthropology. Wolf was born in Vienna, but his Jewish family moved first to England and then America to avoid persecution, and Wolf was raised largely in New York. He fought overseas in WWII and saw action in Italy with the 10th Mountain Division. Like many returning soldiers he took advantage of the newly-minted G.I. Bill to get a college education and developed an interest in other cultures. Wolf began studying anthropology at Columbia University.... Columbia had been the home of Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict for many years, and was the central location for the spread of anthropology in America. By the time Wolf had arrived Boas had died and his anthropological style, which was suspicious of generalization and preferred detailed studies of particular subjects, was also out of fashion. The new chair of the anthropology department was Julian Steward, a student of Robert Lowie and Alfred Kroeber.
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