Collected Essays

by M.N. Srinivas

The work of M.N. Srinivas occupies a position of seminal importance in the development of sociology and social anthropology in India. His essays are remarkable for their methodological rigour and accessibility. This comprehensive collection of his essays is organized thematically into eight sections that reflect the vast terrain of his scholarship: Village Studies; Caste and Social Structure; Gender; Religion; Cultural and Social Change in India; Sociology and Social Anthropology in India; Method; and Autobiographical Essays. The autobiographical pieces are especially valuable-- they provide glimpses of the person behind the sociologist, and reveal just how intertwined the two were. It will be of immense value not only to students and teachers of sociology and anthropology, but also to those interested in understanding the manifold dimensions and changes of social reality in India.

About the Author:

M.N. Srinivas (1916-99), one of India's most distinguished sociologists, was the J.R.D. Tata visiting Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, Fellow of the British Academy, and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, London. He is the author of such classics as Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India (1952) and The Remembered Village (1976).