Tepoztlán: Village in Mexico

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Holt, 1960 - Social Science - 104 pages
This is a book of very broad scope about a single Mexican village. Tepoztlan, the village, is placed on a time line that extends from the tenth century A.D. and the Toltec Empire, to the present; from legendary history to contemporary anthropological observation. The main focus of the book is upon life as it is lived today in this village, typical of many, by the Mexican peasant. Economics, intrafamily relationships, and the life cycle are described (from publisher).

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Contents

Introduction
1
The Life Cycle
2
Village History
16
Copyright

6 other sections not shown

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About the author (1960)

Oscar Lewis, an American anthropologist, was renowned for his studies of poverty in Mexico and Puerto Rico and for his controversial concept of "the culture of poverty." After graduating from Columbia University, where he studied under Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas, and Margaret Mead, his first major book, Life in a Mexican Village (1951), was a restudy of Robert Redfield's village of Tepoztlan, which reached a number of conclusions opposed to those reached by Redfield. Much of the controversy over the culture of poverty disappeared when Lewis labeled it a subculture; ironically, reactionaries have used the concept to blame the poor for their poverty, whereas Lewis believed the poor to be victims. Many of his books are based on tape recordings of family members, a technique in which Lewis was a pioneer.

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