Edward B. (Edward Burnett) Tylor

Born in London on October 2, 1832, and later knighted, Edward Burnett Tylor is widely remembered as one of the founders of cultural anthropology. He spent much of his career at the University of Oxford, where he became the first professor of anthropology.

Tylor is especially known for his influential attempts to define culture in a broad way and for his studies of religion, myth, and social customs across different societies. His work helped establish anthropology as a formal field of study, even though some of his ideas reflect the assumptions of his time rather than those of present-day scholarship.

He died on January 2, 1917, in Wellington, Somerset. More than a century later, he is still an important historical figure for readers interested in how anthropology first took shape as a discipline.