Professor Jarvie examines the nature of the revolution in social anthropology in order to investigate its results. Working within Karl Popper's radical view of the nature of science, he argues that the subject is one of the oldest and most fundamental of all studies and suggests it can easily be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, not merely as a matter of historical curiosity, but as having fruitful results for the understanding of Malinowski and the revolution.

I. C. Jarvie, Ernest Gellner

Chapter 1 Metaphysics and Method in Social Anthropology; Chapter 2 An Empirical Case-Study; Chapter 3 A Survey of Explanations of Cargo Cults; Chapter 4 Explanation and Explaining the Cults; Chapter 5 Methodological Discussion of the Theories; Chapter 6 The Aims and Methods of Social Anthropology;