Historical anthropology from a 'freezing January' in 1990 to the present

Abstract

What a pleasure it is to read Culture and History in the Pacific (Siikala 2021b [1990]) once again. The new, open access edition of this important volume brings back memories of my days in graduate school at the University of Chicago in the late 1990s. Such memories are bittersweet: as I write this piece in April 2021 I have just received word that my dissertation supervisor Marshall Sahlins has passed away at the age of 90. I’d like to take this opportunity, therefore, to look back at Sahlins and Chicago from my perspective as a professor at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. What was the moment of ‘historical anthropology’ of which Culture and History in the Pacific was a part? What has it become? What are the legacies of this volume and the school of thought that runs through it?