The best in my area

It's very difficult to decide who is the best in my area, because actually I don't know many chilean anthropologists, except for the ones that are my teachers in the university, and I don't know very much about them. I know a few archaelogists, but I think that a lot my class mates are going to talk about them, so I decided to talk about Marvin Harris. I don't know if he's the best in my area, because I think there's a lot of good anthropologists, and because I'm just starting in my career, and despite I've lerning a lot, I don't know if I'm qualified to decide who's the best in this area. Marvin Harris was a north american anthropologist of the XX century, he developed his theory in the middle of the 70's. He's a very important figure, since he was the creator of a theorical approach in anthropology (and sociology), an anthropological research paradigm called cultural materialism. The reason I like him, is because of "his theory", the theorical content of this paradigm, because it gives and explanation of the progress and evolution of a culture, most specific, he proposed that the social life of a culture and its ideology is the response to the practical problems or the material conditions. I think the cause of why I think that he's the best, is because he always put into practice his theory, since he not only proposed it. All his books and works are testimony of the application of his theory, like an attempt of explanation of a cultural phenomenon through the cultural materialism. Besides, I think he's the best because this theory can explain a lot of phenomena associated with the ideology of a culture in materialistic or practical terms,that is to say, the Marvin Harris Theory can explain irrational practices as the result of infrastructure problems.