ABSTRACT
This book is the outgrowth of an experiment. Its editors, curious to explore current trends and styles of analysis in political anthropology, decided to ask a number of distinguished practitioners in this field to contribute papers for presentation at the 1964 Annual General Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. I t was decided that the contribu tors were to be given considerable leeway in their choice and treatment of topics, for our aim was to find out whether "a wind of change" was invading political theory as i t had invaded the actual politics of most societies that have been studied by anthropologists.
