Pierre L. van den Berghe quotes:

Sociology seems to have missed every intellectually promising boat in the last half century.

I suffer the anthropological malady diagnosed by Le vi- Strauss inTristes tropiques: I find it much more difficult to suspend value judgments about the society in which I normally reside than I do abroad. It takes physical and cultural distance to gain moral detachment and political noncommitment. Relativism implies a solid measure of indifference.

A towering theoretical achievement of exceptional elegance...Like most great books, Sociobiology is unpedantic, lucid, and eminently accessible.