Yanomamö: The Fierce People
Yanomamö: The Fierce People is a 1968 book by American cultural anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon. It is an ethnographic study of the Yanomami people of the Amazon. The book has become a bestseller and widely used in university anthropology classes. It has also been controversial for its depiction of Yanomamö society as particularly violent, and Chagnon's interpretation that this characteristic is a result of biological differences acquired through natural selection. Contents The book is an anthropological study of the Yanomami people whom Chagnon observed. As the book title implies, Chagnon characterized them as very violent, with said violence serving the purpose related to natural selection: as noted by a reviewer, "the men who killed the most enemies, [Chagnon] asserted, tended to have more wives and children so passing on the genes that made the successful warriors and leaders." Reception Impact The book had several editions, selling nearly a million copies. It is commonly used as a text in university-level introductory anthropology classes, making it one of the bestselling anthropological texts of all time. The book has also been argued to have made the Yanomami, "the most famous (and infamous) tribal people in the world." Reviews Writer James Wilson writing for The