Peter Worsley, an influential social scientist, passed away at the age of 88. He was an exceptional social anthropologist turned sociologist, who played a significant role in introducing and popularizing the concept of "third world" initially proposed by the French demographer Alfred Sauvy. His direct experience of "the other" during the war era, coupled with the demise of the colonial empires and the emergence of two superpowers, contributed to the epochal changes in the world system.
Worsley grew up in Birkenhead, on the Wirral peninsula, in a middle-class Catholic family. After completing his education at Wallasey grammar school, he went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to read English. He dropped his Catholicism and joined the Communist party within weeks of joining Cambridge. A year later, he joined the King’s African Rifles and finally switched to social anthropology upon returning to Cambridge after the war. He worked briefly as an education officer with the British government in Tanganyika, where he also conducted his own research on the traditions of the Hehe people of southern Tanzania.
However, his work was hampered by the interventions of MI5 due to his communist associations. He then moved to the Australian National University, Canberra, to complete his PhD on Aboriginal kinship after facing opposition from MI5 to do fieldwork in central Africa. After being blocked by MI5 from doing African fieldwork again upon returning home, he switched to sociology and landed a lectureship in sociology at Hull University in 1956.
Worsley’s most productive years were during his eight-year tenure at Hull University. Alongside his wife Sheila, he became actively involved in the New Left and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and wrote extensively on colonial issues, particularly for the New Reasoner and New Left Review. His first book, The Trumpet Shall Sound, was published in 1957, and his most influential work, The Third World, was published in 1964. Written solely to explain the nature of post-colonial countries’ presence on the world stage, his study discussed their class structures, states, and policies towards Western and Soviet blocs.
In compensation, he gradually expanded his range of international contacts and visits; in addition to North America, he traveled to Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, China, and the Pacific. He enjoyed a happy and productive year-long sabbatical in New York, during which he wrote The Three Worlds: Culture and World Development (1984). This mature work drew primarily on Latin American data, rather than African data, but it received less recognition than his earlier book, The Third World. When British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher imposed budget cuts on universities, he took early retirement and moved from Manchester to London in 1984, settling in Hackney.
His "third age" was full of activity. He and his wife Sheila purchased a narrow boat, which they used to travel the canals of England. His interests were wide, including film, music, Manchester United football, and socializing at parties and festivals. He was involved in his local Labour Party and taught elderly people computer skills as a volunteer. He also reignited his passion for medical anthropology and indigenous knowledge systems, which led to the creation of his little-known work, Knowledges: Culture, Counterculture, Subculture (1997). His memoir, An Academic Skating on Thin Ice (2008), was dedicated to his grandchildren and demonstrated his intellectual vivacity and kindhearted demeanor.
Tragically, Sheila passed away in 2010. Peter is survived by his two daughters, Deborah and Julia, and his three grandchildren. Peter Maurice Worsley, a sociologist and social anthropologist, was born on May 6th, 1924, and died on March 15th, 2013.