Herbert S. Lewis

Who is Herbert S. Lewis?

Herbert S. Lewis is a Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he had taught since 1963. He has conducted extensive field research. In Ethiopia, Lewis studied the both the history of the Oromo Kingdom of Jimma Abba Jifar and the lives of contemporary Oromos from 1958–60 and 1965–66. Many of his ethnographic photographs are visible in the University of Wisconsin's Digital Library.. His work in Ethiopia was concerned above all with political leadership and community organization as well as ethnohistory and culture history.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Lewis studied ethnicity, class, and culture change in Israel, focusing on those Jews who immigrated from Yemen and Morocco. His 2005 publication, Oneida Lives, presents a large selection of personal accounts by Wisconsin Oneidas that offer deeply personal and wide-ranging perspectives on the lives of men and women of various ages between 1885 and the beginning of World War II.

His book In Defense of Anthropology: An Investigation of the Critique of Anthropology presents a series of articles that make a sustained argument for the value of modern American and British anthropology.