Robert B. Edgerton

Robert Edgerton is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at UCLA and Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at UCLA's Geffen School of Medicine, where he also served as associate director of the Mental Retardation Research Center. He is a former president of the Society for Medical Anthropology (1976-77) and the Society for Psychological Anthropology (1985-86). He was also professor-in-residence at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. In 2007 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Psychological Anthropology. Edgerton has written extensively about the small wars of empire that dot the historical landscape of the nineteenth century. Among the better known of his works is Like Lions They Fought, an examination of the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. His research interests include cultural aspects of deviant behavior, psychological anthropology, mental retardation, and Africa. In addition to his career-long interest in the community adaptation of persons with mild mental retardation, he has written about culture and personality, rules and social order, deviant behavior and cultural relativism. He has examined the experiences of men and women during warfare, especially in Africa but also in Japan and during the Crimean War. Most recently, he has described the women warriors of Dahoney, the Amasons, has chronicled the heroism of blacks in America's wars and is currently exploring military dictatorships in Africa.