ABSTRACT
Area studies may be only a covering term for a more effective mapping of the world for the purpose of imperialistic penetration and ultimately of war. In the language of geography, area studies are studies of "specific regions" rather than of "generic regions." Area studies owe much to the concept of culture area as developed by American anthropologists in connection with the exploration of Indian culture in North America. From anthropology to area studies runs a thread. Anthropologists have realized that recorded human behavior is significant only when the record includes the context. The concept of social change, which is taken as one of the basic concepts in sociology, appears as a derived concept in area studies as it does in the field theory of the psychologists. Area studies are one of the efforts at integration in which scholars in the social sciences are presently engaged.
