Raoul Naroll was an anthropologist who did much to promote the methodology of cross-cultural studies

Cross-cultural studies

Cross-cultural studies, sometimes called Holocultural Studies, is a specialization in anthropology and sister sciences that uses field data from many societies to examine the scope of human behavior and test hypotheses about human behavior and culture. Cross-cultural studies is the third form of...

. He was born in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 but was raised in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 and attended UCLA at the age of 16, dropping out in his junior year. Naroll returned to his studies in anthropology

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

 and history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 in 1949, receiving an A.B. in 1950, his Master's in 1952 and a Ph.d. in history in 1953. In 1939, he joined the army serving in Infantry, as an Officer in the Army Finance Department and in the Military Intelligence Service, screening officials and prisoners of war in Germany.

The author of eight books, several articles and book reviews, Naroll's research spanned many disciplines. His first book, Data Quality Control, a new research technique; prolegomena to a cross-cultural study of culture stress, concerns the issue of trustworthiness of data and methodology used in studying cultures. Much of his later research was concerned with the application of cross-cultural anthropological theory to historical data. Texts such as Imperial Cycles and World Order (1966) and Military Deterrence in History (1974)http://books.google.com/books?id=afZnn1NRxIAC&pg=PP1&ots=guTH5t5Bn7&dq=Military+Deterrence+in+History&sig=U56ikaaM8C6C49SWYBjPqs4Fijc#PPR7,M1 point to Naroll's concerns and scholarship on war and military studies. The Moral Order: An Introduction to the Human Situation (1983) is a broad, evolutionary study of ten factors of social life, from a cross-cultural perspective.

Naroll was a member of the faculty of the University at Buffalo

University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, also commonly known as the University at Buffalo or UB, is a public research university and a "University Center" in the State University of New York system. The university was founded by Millard Fillmore in 1846. UB has multiple campuses...

 and was a past president of the Human Relations Area Files

Human Relations Area Files

The Human Relations Area Files, Inc. , located in New Haven, Connecticut is a nonprofit international membership organization with over 300 member institutions in the U.S. and more than 20 other countries...

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Books by Raoul Naroll

• Data Quality Control (1962)
• Imperial Cycles and World Order (1966)
• Handbook of Method in Cultural Anthropology (1970)
• Main Currents in Cultural Anthropology (1973)
• Military Deterrence in History: A Pilot Cross Historical Survey (1974)
• HRAFLIB (HRAF Hologeistic Computer Program Library) (1975)
• Worldwide Theory Testing (1976)
• The Moral Order: An Introduction to the Human Situation (1983)