Social Anthropology: By Paul Radin. (McGraw Hill Book Company, New York and London, 1933. Pp. xii + 432. Price 21 s.)

If the author's aim in writing this book was to give the lay reader some ideas of primitive life and ways, he has succeeded in his task. The author, who is himself one of the best American field anthropologists, writes mainly from a sociological point of view and on the 'organization of the state', 'the organization of law and custom', 'the organization of economic and industrial life', while the last two chapters deal with religion and mythology. If I say that he writes from a sociological point of view, I mean to say that he is interested in questions of organization, but not that he explains anything even sociologically. Indeed, modern anthropology, if it is not either historical or psycho-analytical, does not seem to regard explanation as necessary. Failure is exalted as a virtue and to give no explanation is the climax of good scientific method. It is a pity that this should be so, as the author, if he had some personal acquaintance with psycho-analysis, would undoubtedly be among those who could lay down the foundations of the anthropology of the future. His views on theoretical questions are contained in the introduction (The History of Ethnological Theories). He is decidedly anti-evolutionistic and has a certain scorn for the 'time-honoured heirloom of evolutionism' (p. 12). His attitude towards psycho-analysis is ambivalent, for on the one hand it is 'evident that the concepts