Clifford Geertz is considered one of the most important social scientists and anthropologists of the twentieth century. He is a prominent figure in the interpretive turn in anthropology and beyond. Whereas earlier anthropology examined and distinguished cultures according to social structures or cultural patterns, Geertz understands cultures from their context. With his method of thick description, Geertz attempted to describe cultures in their entirety based on exemplary practices. Ethnologists should “read” these cultural practices as one reads a text—culture understood as a text whose meaning must be interpreted. Rituals and symbols not only reveal culture—they are culture in action. Taking this further, he critically reflected on how researchers help construct the reality of their research through their language and narrative style. In that sense he is the ancestor of the writing culture-movement. In particular, The Interpretation of Culture (1973) as text helped shape the cognitive turn in psychology in the 1970s but was unable to gain acceptance at that time.