''African Political Systems'' is an academic anthology edited by the anthropologists

Meyer Fortes Meyer Fortes FBA FRAI (25 April 1906 – 27 January 1983) was a South African-born anthropologist, best known for his work among the Tallensi and Ashanti in Ghana. Originally trained in psychology, Fortes employed the notion of the "person ...

and

E. E. Evans-Pritchard Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, Kt FBA FRAI (21 September 1902 – 11 September 1973) was an English anthropologist who was instrumental in the development of social anthropology. He was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University ...

which was published by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

on the behalf of the

International African Institute The International African Institute (IAI) was founded (as the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures - IIALC) in 1926 in London for the study of African languages. Frederick Lugard was the first chairman (1926 to his death in 194 ...

in 1940. The book contains eight separate papers produced by scholars working in the field of

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

, each of which focuses in on a different society in Sub-Saharan Africa. It was the intention of the editors to bring together information on African political systems on a "broad, comparative basis" for the first time.

Background

Describing the purpose of ''African Political Systems'', Fortes and Evans-Pritchard related that it offered "both an experiment in collaborative research and an attempt to bring into focus one of the major problems of African sociology. Many dogmatic opinions are held on the subject of African political organization and are even made use of in administrative practice; but no one has yet examined this aspect of African society on a broad, comparative basis." They expressed their hope that the anthology would prove to be "the first stage of a wider enquiry into the nature and development of African political systems", which would ultimately include not only "native political systems" but also "the study of the development of these systems under the influence of European rule."

Synopsis

Radcliffe-Brown's "Preface"

The preface to ''African Political Systems'' was authored by

A.R. Radcliffe-Brown Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown, FBA (born Alfred Reginald Brown; 17 January 1881 – 24 October 1955) was an English social anthropologist who helped further develop the theory of structural functionalism. Biography Alfred Reginald Radcli ...

(1881–1955), then Professor of Social Anthropology at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, who argued that the "comparative study of political institutions, with special reference to the simpler societies, is an important branch of social anthropology which has not yet received the attention it deserves." Proceeding to argue that the "comparative method" can be used "as an instrument for inductive inference", he believed that doing so would allow scholars to "discover the universal, essential, characters which belong to all human societies, past, present and future". Despite this, he did note that scholars must be careful not to "pass directly from empirical observations to a knowledge of general sociological laws or principles", believing that before this, all known societies must be "reduced to some order of classification". Radcliffe-Brown 1940. p. xi.

References

Bibliography

* * {{refend 1940 non-fiction books Anthropology books Sociology books