ABSTRACT
Julian H. Steward is one of the few American anthropologists of his generation who has a tough-minded concern with the developing issues of the modern world. This chapter addresses the problem of contingency, which is the very sense and meaning of history, thus sustaining a debate which has engaged many of us who have been associated with Julian over the years. Every act is first and foremost an historical event; only after it is living history can it become a frozen specimen, categorically subsumed and subject to abstract analysis, can it become, in short, material for the culturologists. History is both the study, and the actual occurrence, of events, of their initiation and resolution, and of their concrete connections. The significance of the individual, and of the individual event in determining the course of history and thus the more abstract morphology of culture which interests many anthropologists, can be readily established.
