ABSTRACT
This study is not based primarily upon field research. It attempts to make social anthropological sense of the very extensive and uneven travel and historical literature on Albania, to distil from this formidable corpus a picture of the traditional social structure of the country, and to apply this as an analytical tool to understanding, at least in broad outline, the main political developments in Albania between 1910 and 1950. This type of analysis cannot, of course, compare with the rich harvest of elucidation garnered by first-hand field research. But since recent political changes in Albania have effaced or drastically altered the traditional structure of society, field research is likely to be of little help, and the choice is between the kind of anthropological history offered here and nothing.
