Listener 24 November, 1979, republished in The Listener Bedside Book, No 3 (1999) p.182-183.
Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Maori;
Raymond Firth’s study of the pre-European Maori economy, The Economics of the New Zealand Maori, is half a century old. In 1929 Firth, a young New Zealand economics graduate, decided to pursue economic anthropology, and undertook a doctorate, supervised by Bronislaw Malinkowski, at the University of London. Today, at 80, Firth is one of the grand old men of anthropology , with honorary doctorates from seven prestigious universities.
