Anton Blok (born 1935 in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

) is a Dutch anthropologist, famous for studying

the Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

in 1960s. Anton Blok was a visiting professor at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

(1972–73) and the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1988. From 1973 until 1986, he served as full professor of cultural anthropology at

Radboud University Radboud University (abbreviated as RU, nl, Radboud Universiteit , formerly ''Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen'') is a public research university located in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The university bears the name of Saint Radboud, a 9th century D ...

, Nijmegen. He then accepted a chair at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

, where he remained until his retirement. For that occasion, thirty of his international colleagues and former students contributed essays in his honor, an edited volume titled as ''Miniature Etnografiche'' (SUN, 2000). Now a professor ''emeritus'' professor at U Amsterdam, Dr. Blok also spent one semester at

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

as a

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

Select bibliography

*''The Mafia of a Sicilian Village, 1860-1960: A Study of Violent Peasant Entrepreneurs''. Harper & Row, 1974. *''De Bokkerijders: Roversbenden en geheime genootschappen in de Landen van Overmaas (1730–1774)''. Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1991. *''Honour and Violence.'' Cambridge: Polity, 2001. *''Anthropologische Perspektiven: Einführung, Kritik und Plädoyer.'' With Klaus Schomburg. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1995. *''De Vernieuwers: De Zegeningen van Tegenslag in Wetenschap en Kunst, 1500–2000''. Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2013.

References

*''Organized Crime'' (2003), Michael D. Lyman, Gary W. Potter. Waveland Press: Upper Sadle River, New Jersey.
Biography at University of Amsterdam
1935 births Living people Anthropology educators Anthropology writers Cultural anthropologists Dutch anthropologists Historians of the Sicilian Mafia Scientists from Amsterdam Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty University of Michigan faculty Yale University faculty {{Netherlands-scientist-stub