ABSTRACT
Many contemporary anthropologists would appraise Bronislaw Malinowski's contribution to anthropology primarily in terms of his field-work and his unquestioned capacity to train other field-workers. But his work as a theorist, less widely recognized, was probably a more significant contribution to the development of anthropology. The two phases of his work were, of course, essentially and explicitly interconnected. His observations in the Trobriand islands were transmuted into a general theory for the comparative study of human cultures. And this theory, applied in lectures, seminars, and published works to other cultures, influenced, directly or indirectly, those field-workers who have set new standards of field-work over the past two or three decades. It is necessary to emphasize this fact, because it is often assumed that the standard of Malinowski's own field-work was due to some mystical insight which, by a sort of laying-on of hands, he was able to transmit to his students. Actually it was his theoretical framework for the study of culture, and the training which his students received in it, which accounted for the revolution in standards of field-work mentioned above.
