The American cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz (born 1926) did ethnographic field work in Indonesia and Morocco, wrote influential essays on central theoretical issues in the social sciences, and advocated a distinctive "interpretive" approach to anthropology.

Clifford Geertz was born in San Francisco on August 23, 1926. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he received a B.A. from Antioch College in 1950 and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1956. Having held a number of brief appointments early in his career, he took a position at the University of Chicago in 1960, where he was rapidly promoted to associate and then full professor. In 1970 he joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, as professor of social science, a position of rare distinction which he still occupied in 1999. Over the years Geertz received a considerable number of honors and awards, including honorary degrees from several institutions...