Robert McCormick Adams Jr.

Robert McCormick Adams Jr. (July 23, 1926 – January 27, 2018)^[1] was an American anthropologist and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (1984–94).^[2] He worked in both the Near East and Mesoamerica. A long time professor of the University of Chicago, he was best known for his research in Iraq.^[3]

Early life and education

Born in

During Adams's tenure, the Smithsonian acquired the National Museum of the American Indian, and the National Postal Museum was established to showcase the National Philatelic Collection. The National Science Resources Center was created to improve the teaching of pre-college science and mathematics, and the International Center was established to explore ancient and evolving cultures and to serve as the Smithsonian's headquarters for Latin American scholarship, exhibitions, and programs. Adams formed the Smithsonian Cultural Education Committee to promote diversity across all aspects of Smithsonian operations. He also encouraged digitization projects, such as the National Air and Space Museum's videodisc technology for storage and retrieval of documents, photos, and other information. The "culture wars" arrived at the Smithsonian in 1991, with criticisms of The West as America, an exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 1994, Science in American Life, at the National Museum of American History, provoked outcries from the scientific community for its critical look at American science. And the first script for the Enola Gay exhibit in the National Air and Space Museum was completed shortly before Adams's departure.^[4]

Later life

Adams retired from the Smithsonian after ten years of service in 1994 and returned to academia as an adjunct professor at the University of California, San Diego. He received a Distinguished Service Award from the Society for American Archaeology in 1996 and continued his fieldwork and research in the archaeology and anthropology of the Middle East.^[3]

Scholarly research

Robert McCormick Adams has had a wide-ranging career spanning many fields. Geographically, his interests have involved extensive fieldwork in the Middle East, but have also included Mexico. With a broadly interdisciplinary approach, he has studied the course of development of urban civilizations over many millennia, and he has also dealt with the history of technology. Partly as an outgrowth of decades of experience in Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia, he has until recently been involved in studies of multiethnic violence under the joint sponsorship of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Over the course of his career Adams has emphasized the importance of social interaction and cultural ecology in the evolution of civilizations. His research has explored how cultural ecology can help explain the rise of civilizations and how cultures affect each other.^[3]

Adams has proposed, based on his excavations in

• The Land Behind Baghdad: A History of Settlement on the Diyala Plains (1965)
• TREND AND TRADITION IN NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY (1966)
• The Evolution of Urban Society: Early Mesopotamia and Prehispanic Mexico (1966)
• Michael M. Davis, a Tribute (1971)
• The Uruk countryside: The natural setting of urban societies (1972)
• PATTERNS OF URBANIZATION IN EARLY SOUTHERN MESOPOTAMIA (1973)
• WORLD PICTURE, ANTHROPOLOGICAL FRAME [DISTINGUISHED LECTURE - 1976] (1977)
• Heartland of Cities:Surveys of Ancient Settlement and Land Use on the Central Floodplain of the Euphrates (1981)
• Oriental Institute 1982-83 Annual Report (University of Chicago) (1983)
• Science, Ethics, and Food: Papers and Proceedings of a Colloquium Organized by the Smithsonian Institution (Smithsonian International Symposia Series) (1988)
• SMITHSONIAN YEAR 1992 (1993)
• Smithsonian: February 1993 (1993)
• Paths of Fire: An anthropologist's inquiry into Western technology (1996)
• The Family in America: Searching for Social Harmony in the Industrial Age (2003)

See also

• Martin Harwit

References

This article contains public domain text from the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Bibliography

• "Adams, Robert McCormick", Academic American Encyclopedia, 1991 edition, vol 1., p. 97.
• Urbanized Landscapes in Early Syro-Mesopotamia and Prehispanic Mesoamerica. Papers of a Cross-Cultural Seminar held in Honor of Robert McCormick Adams, eds by D. Domenici and N. Marchetti, Wiesbaden 2018 (downloadable in Open Access).

Further reading

• Caplan, Lincoln (21 January 1985). "The Secretary". The New Yorker. Vol. 60, no. 49. pp. 24–25.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Robert McCormick Adams.

• UCSD: Department of Anthropology, Robert McCormick Adams, Faculty Profile and CV.
• On Being a Scientist by the Committee on the Conduct of Science, National Academy of Sciences, 1989 and 1995 edition.
• Rediscovering Geography Committee, National Research Council (1997). Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. p. 248.
  ISBN 978-0-309-07679-1
  .
• Thomas Levy (March 30, 1999). Dig This: Robert McC. Adams (online video). La Jolla, CA: University of California Television.