ABSTRACT
As Karl Deutsch has observed on more than one occasion, the story of mankind in its social and political aspects can be regarded as the story of how small groups became amalgamated into larger units. In this book, however, we are concerned neither with the way in which kinship groups became amalgamated into tribes nor with the way in which nations may become merged into international communities in the future. Our concern is with the way in which ethnic and cultural groups have become wholly or partly merged into national societies so as to support the political organization of the national state.
