ABSTRACT
When I returned to Harvard after World War II, I had lost, except for sheer experience in the ways of men and ships, about five of the potentially most productive years of my professional life. I wanted to catch up. Above all, I wanted to write, and knew that I should not gain further academic advancement unless I published—but I really believe that “publish or perish” was a secondary motive with me. I wanted first to put flesh on the conceptual scheme for the study of social organization that I had been turning over in my mind for years.
