ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the problem of micro/macro systems articulation as an issue in the history of anthropological ideas. It examines anthropology's increasing concern with the historical present, as well as implications for theories of anthropology and kindred disciplines. As tribal and peasant communities began publicly and officially merging into national populations, anthropologists came to discover what historians and sociologists had known for a long time. The social forms of the small community or any localized demographic unit are not created in situ, but evolve in complex relationship with the institutions of larger societies. The sociological tradition was focused largely on the question of social class. Tribes, cultures, communities were seen as secondary in importance. The social class, defined as a group of people with similar opportunities or deprivations, was considered to be the basic social unit of analysis for large systems.
