Introduction

The essays brought together in this collection were written or published between 1964 and 1990. A quarter-century is not a small span in the professional career of a single individual. In this case it was also a period of many changes in the disciplines of social anthropology and sociology, as well as in the social and political environment to whose understanding the essays are mainly devoted. I thought it might be of interest to use the work of a single individual to recall and recount some of these changes. Hence I have included some early essays even though the volume might have had an appearance, of greater unity if I had put in their place some more recent ones not included here.