ABSTRACT
A woman loses her husband; a household is evicted by a slum clearance scheme; the son of a peasant farmer launches a modern wholesale business in his village; a new plan of action sets out to challenge'the jurisdiction of established bureaucracies. In each of these situations, a familiar pattern of relationships has been disrupted; and in each of them the disruption seems to provoke a fundamentally comparable reaction. Whether the change is sought or resisted, and happens by chance or design; whether we look at it from the standpoint of reformers or those they manipulate, of individuals or institutions, the response is characteristically ambivalent. The will to adapt to change has to overcome an impulse to restore the past which is equally universal. What becomes of a widow, a displaced family, a new organisation or a new way ofbusiness depends on how these conflicting impulses work themselves out, within each person and his or her relationships.
