Tradition and Contract: The Problem of Social Order

"Since their inauguration in 1963, the Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures have annually provided stimulation for those who have attended them, and each of the published series has found an interested and receptive audience. The Lectures not only commemorate Morgan and his work; they have as additional aims the encouragement of exploration and the presentation of recently developed views in anthropology.

Professor Colson’s Lectures, which opened the series’ second decade, pay full attention to these aims. Her intention, expressed in her title and in her text, is to consider "the problem of order," a matter of concern to Lewis Henry Morgan, a host of later anthropologists, and innumerable others in diverse fields.

Readers of these Lectures will find carefully forged links with the work of Morgan and that of others. They will also discover that Professor Colson’s skillful use of material from her work during the past thirty years with the Plateau and Gwembe Tonga of Zambia contributes, in a unique way, to the structure of her argument and to illumination of her major theoretical points."