埃裏剋·R.沃爾夫（1923—1999年），齣生於奧地利維也納，1940年赴美，曾參與第二次世界大戰；戰爭結束後於1951年獲得美國哥倫比亞大學人類學博士學位，曾先後任教於伊利諾伊大學、耶魯大學、芝加哥大學等著名學府。埃裏剋·R.沃爾夫是當代著名的人類學傢，著作頗豐，知名作品有《農民社會》（Peasants）、《二十世紀的農民戰爭》（Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century）等。本書被認為是他的代錶作。

譯者賈士蘅，颱灣大學曆史係學士、考古人類學碩士，曾擔任美國丹佛美術博物館研究員，翻譯作品有《英國史》《英國社會人類學》《英國社會史》《曆史的再思考》《帝國的年代》《英國工人階級的形成》等書。

"Wolf's intention is to show that European expansion not only transformed the historical trajectory of non-European societies but also reconstituted their historical accounts of their societies before European intervention. . . . His historical sweep and analytic breadth are astounding, and he gives approximately equal weight to historical 'winners' and 'losers.'" --Michael S. Kimmel, American Journal of Sociology

"Wolf's intention is to explain the development and nature of the chains of cause and consequence which linked populations in the post-1400 world. The outcome is a tightly structured and elegant book." --Oceania

"The work of a powerful theoretical intelligence, but one informed by a lived sense of social realities." --Times Literary Supplement

"In this big and important book, Eric Wolf begins and ends with the assertion that anthropology must pay more attention to history. . . . It is with pleasure, then, that one reads a critical analysis that rejects pseudo-historical oppositions and explores with such care the historical processes by which primitive and peasant pasts have become a fundamentally altered primitive, peasant, and proletarian present." --William Roseberry, Dialectical Anthropology

"Wolf has created a history of connection rather than one of segregation. . . . This absorbing and stimulating book . . . provides a convincing and, dare I say, new perspective. . . . By emphasizing a common past, Wolf moves away from weary polarities of active 'white' centre and passive 'non-white' periphery and suggests both a more complex and a more informed sense of the relationship between Europe and the rest of the world."--Ben Jay, European Update

"Wolf's empirical knowledge is exceptionally wide. . . . He relies on a skillful selection of phenomena in time and space that are reasonably representative of the totality. . . . The book is very well written and with a profoundly human touch."--Magnus Mörner, Ethnos