《历史之岛》以夏威夷群岛历史史料为根基，以“库克船长”和“毛利人的英雄人物霍尼海克的神话”等为例，阐述了其历史文化、社会变革、政治制度等。《历史之岛》忠实、详尽地考察了南太平洋诸岛的土著文化：毛利人、斐济人、波利尼西亚人的生活、社会、王权、宗教、禁忌等观念与现象，并具体描述了欧洲入侵者进入夏威夷诸岛后所发生的抵抗、冲突、交往、贸易、政治等各重大事件。

社会与文化丛书·萨林斯文化与历史论丛。 这是一本对批评进行回应的学术著作。这本书的一个突出特点是，附录占去了全书近三分之一的篇幅，主要是对自18世纪以来的各种相关的英文和夏威夷文献的详细讨论。

In anthropology as much as in popular imagination, kings are figures of fascination and intrigue, heroes or tyrants in ways presidents and prime ministers can never be. This collection of essays by two of the world’s most distinguished anthropologists—David Graeber and Marshall Sahlins—explores what kingship actually is, historically and anthropologically. As they show, kings are symbols for more than just sovereignty: indeed, the study of kingship offers a unique window into fundamental dilemmas concerning the very nature of power, meaning, and the human condition. Reflecting on issues such as temporality, alterity, piracy, and utopia—not to mention the divine, the strange, the numinous, and the bestial—Graeber and Sahlins explore the role of kings as they have existed around the world, from the BaKongo to the Aztec to the Shilluk and beyond. Richly delivered with the wit and sharp analysis characteristic of Graeber and Sahlins, this book opens up new avenues for the anthropological study of this fascinating and ubiquitous political figure.

First devised as after-dinner entertainment at a decennial meeting of the Association of Social Anthropologists in Great Britain, and first published by Prickly Pears Press in 1993, this expanded edition of "Waiting for Foucault" represents some of the brightest anthropological satire - mixed in with some of the most serious intellectual issues in the human sciences. Whether he's summing up the state of the discipline ("Some things are better left un-Said") or ruminating on the ancients, Sahlins delivers a strong mixture of wit and wisdom.

Hawaiian culture as it met foreign traders and settlers is the context for Sahlins's structuralist methodology of historical interpretation.

"The main thrust of this book is to deliver a major critique of materialist and rationalist explanations of social and cultural forms, but the in the process Sahlins has given us a much stronger statement of the centrality of symbols in human affairs than have many of our 'practicing' symbolic anthropologists. He demonstrates that symbols enter all phases of social life: those which we tend to regard as strictly pragmatic, or based on concerns with material need or advantage, as well as those which we tend to view as purely symbolic, such as ideology, ritual, myth, moral codes, and the like. . . ."--Robert McKinley, "Reviews in Anthropology"

Marshall Sahlins centers these essays on islands--Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand--whose histories have intersected with European history. But he is also concerned with the insular thinking in Western scholarship that creates false dichotomies between past and present, between structure and event, between the individual and society. Sahlins's provocative reflections form a powerful critique of Western history and anthropology.