His 1933 work on the Ghost dance among the Pawnee was the first anthropological study of a cultural revitalization movement.
Lesser was a critic of the psychological anthropology of Ruth Benedict preferring a more historicizing mode of explanation of cultural phenomena.
In 1939 Lesser publicly broke with the Boasian historical particularism, arguing that it is possible to demonstrate general rules of cultural evolution.
[2] During World War II he worked as a social science analyst for the government and subsequently spent a number of years directing the Association of American Indian Affairs, and serving on the National Research Council.
[3] In 1947 along with 10 coworkers he was terminated from the State Department because of his political views,[4] but he successfully defended himself in court and received an apology from the government and had his record cleared.