ABSTRACT
This book has been written because some of us have thought for a long while that too little attention has been paid to the work of Bronislaw Malinowski. He has been one of the outstanding influences in shaping modern British social anthropology. More than ten years have passed since his death and the time has come for a fresh estimate of his contribution. His achievement has indubitably suffered from his early death. If he had lived for another decade his dialectical skill, let alone the richness of his creative mind, would have found many answers to his critics and derived profit from their comment. Much of this comment has been justified, but by no means all, and sometimes his work has been passed over where credit was due.
