Excerpt from Method in Social Anthropology: Selected Essays This is possibly the final volume of A. R. Radcliffe-Brown's published and unpublished contributions to social science in general and social anthropology in particular. It presents, in Part I, Radcliffe-Brown's major methodological papers in chronological order and follows, in Part II, with his last finished statement on the nature and development of social anthropology, originally prepared as the first portion of a projected introductory book on social anthropology. It is published with the kind permission and encouragement of Professor E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Radcliffe-Brown's literary executor, and any royalties will accrue to a research fund set up in Radcliffe-Brown's name. We are greatly indebted to Professor M. N. Srinivas, the distinguished Indian social anthropologist, for the task of arranging and editing this volume and for his illuminating Introduction, in which he traces the development of Radcliffe-Brown's methodological and theoretical conceptions. Our thanks are also due the publishers of the South African Journal of Science and of Nature, and the officers of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, for permission to reprint the published essays included in this volume. Professor Srinivas has also prepared a brief selective bibliography of books and essays concerned, in part at least, with Radcliffe-Brown's influence on anthropology. Already it is clear that it has been considerable, and it is still growing. This volume, we hope, will be a contribution to that end. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.