ABSTRACT
The Marxist tradition in social theory examined in Chapter 4 continues today in the so-called conflict theory of sociology, which examines how the divergent interests of social groups (mostly social classes) led to significant conflicts in society. In mid-to late-twentieth-century anthropology, as we’ll see, Marxism inspired a variety of materialist perspectives that have sought to understand the origins of cultural practices in terms of the material conditions of life. The other tradition of nineteenth-century thought, a conservative tradition originating with Comte, developed in reaction to Marx by proposing an alternative conception of modern society. The major inheritor of Comte’s sociology was his French compatriot Emile Durkheim (1858-1917; Figure 5.1).
