Reciprocity and Redistribution in Andean Civiliz – The 1969 Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures Lectures

John V. Murra's Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures, originally given in 1969, are the only major study of the Andean "avenue towards civilization." Collected and published for the first time here, they offer a powerful and insistent perspective on the Andean region as one of the few places in which a so-called "pristine civilization" developed. Murra sheds light not only on the way civilization was achieved here which followed a fundamentally different process than that of Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica he uses that study to shed new light on the general problems of achieving civilization in any world region. Murra intermixes a study of Andean ecology with an exploration of the ideal of economic self-sufficiency, stressing two foundational socioeconomic forces: reciprocity and redistribution. He shows how both enabled Andean communities to realize direct control of a maximum number of vertically ordered ecological floors and the resources they offered. He famously called this arrangement a "vertical archipelago," a revolutionary model that is still examined and debated almost fifty years after it was first presented in these lecture.Written in a crisp and elegant style and inspired by decades of ethnographic fieldwork, this set of lectures is nothing less than a lost classic, and it will be sure to inspire new generations of anthropologists and historians working in South America and beyond.

"The transcriptions in the book bring to life the oral quality of the presentations... They provide a vivid contribution to the interdisciplinary historiography of anthropology, archaeology, and history."-- "Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute", "John Victor Murra (1916-2006) was lauded as the dean of Central Andean studies from the 1960s through the 1980s, particularly because of his championing of the idea of vertical archipelagos, allowing local access to resources in compressed ecological zones as the mechanism of organization and risk reduction for the Inca state, and his downplaying of the importance of the llama caravan trade. Murra's ideas changed the direction of scholarly research for the next generation and opened new understanding of the Inca state. The editors, two of Murra's students, transcribed the tapes of his four 1969 Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures, in which he set out in English his complete ideas for vertical ecology, and provide the historical rationale for his arguments. The title topics of the four lectures--archipelago model, reciprocity, the Inca attempt to destroy markets, and Inca structural change in Tawantinsuyu--fairly accurately encompass the arguments in each nearly 50-year-old lecture. The book will be key for students of the history of Andean studies. The volume is supported by 14 figures, a five-page glossary, and scattered footnotes. Recommended."-- "CHOICE"

John V. Murra (1916 2006) was a leading anthropologist and scholar of the Inca Empire. He taught at a variety of institutions, including Yale University, Cornell University, Vassar College, the University of Puerto Rico, and Universidad de San Marcos. He is the author or coauthor of many influential books on Andean civilization, including The Economic Organization of the Inca State and Anthropological History of Andean Polities.