Crime and Custom in Savage Society

Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) was one of the most important figures in the development of modern social anthropology. Among the British anthropologists repudiating so-called armchair research, Malinowski was a pioneer of fieldwork. He undertook his long-sustained fieldwork in Papua New Guinea and his accounts are populated by sympathetic figures, described in a deliberately vivid literary style. Malinowski is also recognized as the founder of Functionalism and his ethnographic studies contend that all components of society interlock to form a well-balanced system.

This collection reprints the ground breaking studies that emerged from Malinowski's fieldwork. The final volume of the set is an assessment of his contribution to anthropology.