Leslie White

White spoke of culture as a general human phenomenon, and claimed not to speak of 'cultures' in the plural. His theory, published in 1959 in The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome, rekindled the interest in social evolutionism and is counted prominently among the neoevolutionists. He believed that culture–meaning the total of all human cultural activity on the planet–was evolving. White differentiated three components of culture: technological, sociological, and ideological. He argued that it was the technological component which plays a primary role or is the primary determining factor responsible for the cultural evolution. His materialist approach is evident in the following quote: "man as an animal species, and consequently culture as a whole, is dependent upon the material, mechanical means of adjustment to the natural environment". This technological component can be described as material, mechanical, physical, and chemical instruments, as well as the way people use these techniques. White's argument on the importance of technology goes as follows:

White brought Titiev, his student and a Russian immigrant, to Michigan as a second professor in 1936. However, during the Second World War, Titiev took part in the war effort by studying Japan. Perhaps this upset the socialist White. In any case by war's end White had broken with Titiev, who would go on to found the East Asian Studies Program, and the two were hardly even on speaking terms. No other faculty members were hired until after the war, when scholars like Richard K. Beardsley joined the department. Most would fall on side or the other of the split between White and Titiev.

White went to Michigan when he was hired to replace Julian Steward, who departed Ann Arbor in 1930. Although the university was home to a museum with a long history of involvement in matters anthropological, White was the only professor in the anthropology department itself. He remained here for the rest of his active career. In 1932, he headed a field school in the southwest which was attended by Fred Eggan, Mischa Titiev, and others.

Teaching at University of Buffalo marked a turning point in White's thinking. It was here that he developed a worldview—anthropological, political, ethical—that he would hold to and advocate until his death. White developed an interest in Marxism In 1929, he visited the Soviet Union and on his return joined the Socialist Labor Party, writing articles under the pseudonym "John Steel" for their newspaper.

In 1927 White began teaching at the University at Buffalo.

White lived first in Kansas and then Louisiana. He volunteered to fight in World War I, serving in the US Navy before enrolling at Louisiana State University in 1919. In 1921, he transferred to Columbia University, where he studied psychology, receiving a B.A. in 1923 and a M.A. in 1924. His Ph.D in Anthropology and Sociology came from the University of Chicago(1925).

Leslie Alvin White (January 19, 1900, Salida, Colorado – March 31, 1975, Lone Pine, California) was an American anthropologist known for his advocacy of the theories on cultural evolution, sociocultural evolution, and especially neoevolutionism, and for his role in creating the department of anthropology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. White was president of the American Anthropological Association (1964).