Essays on Social Organisation and Values

by Raymond Firth

In this volume Professor Firth has brought together and commented upon a number of his papers on anthropological subjects published over the last thirty years. All these essays relate in different ways to his continuing interest in the study of social process, especially in the significance within a social context of individual choice and decision. Although some specialist studies are included, e.g. the group of papers dealing with the Polynesian island of Tikopia, the main themes of the book are broad ones and there are important general essays on such topics as social change; social structure and organization; modern society in relation to scientific and technological progress; and the study of values, mysticism, and religion by anthropologists. There is also a hitherto unpublished chapter on anthropology as a developing science.

334 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1969

About the author

Sir Raymond William Firth CNZM FRAI FBA was an ethnologist from New Zealand. As a result of Firth's ethnographic work, actual behaviour of societies (social organization) is separated from the idealized rules of behaviour within the particular society (social structure). He was a long serving professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, and is considered to have singlehandedly created a form of British economic anthropology.