ABSTRACT
Anthropologists have given comparatively little attention to developing frameworks of macroanthropological analysis for complex societies as ‘wholes’. There has rather been an inclination to draw, a little too easily, on other disciplines (or on broader intellectual orientations, especially Marxism) for wider frameworks. Yet one may remember here the work of †A.L.Kroeber (more in cultural than social terms) and †Robert Redfield on civilizations (especially the concept of *great and little traditions), †Julian Steward on levels of socio-cultural integration, and M.G.Smith and others on *plural societies.
