This book is about micro-politics: that kind of manoeuvre to control or avoid being controlled, to claim friendship or proclaim enmity, which takes place between people who know one another, and who must temper and adjust their actions towards one another because they share other activities. They are members of the one community and of the same organization, and this not only moderates their actions but also provides them with themes for use in the political arena.

The Saving Lie Truth and Method in the Social Sciences F. G. Bailey "Ambitious, erudite, well worth a read."--Journal of Anthropological Research This book explores the distinction between selflessness and self-interestedness, between acting for one's own advantage and acting, even when disadvantageous, for reasons of duty or conscience. This apparently straightforward contrast (exemplified in the difference between rational-choice models in economics and holistic models in social anthropology) is a source of confusion. This is so, F. G. Bailey argues, because people polarize and...

Treasons, Stratagems, and Spoils is a sequel to the author's highly regarded Stratagems and Spoils.Treason, the new word in the title, indicates a heightened attention to moralityto ideas of duty and conscienceas a foil to rational calculations of advantage. By providing sets of propositions and questions that illuminate narratives of political events, this book helps anyone interested in struggles for power understand politics and political leaders in their own and in other cultures. The method can be used to make sense of power struggles in peasant villages, electoral...

F.G. Bailey's classic political-anthropology text is reissued here with a Postscript that comments critically on the book's scope, its reception, and its uses. First published in 1969, Stratagems and Spoils captured the imagination of scholars and students with a revealing examination of principles of political competition that operate alike in -exotic- and -developed- societies. In Bailey's analysis, Swat Pathan chiefs, cosa nostra gangsters, General de Gaulle, and the Untouchables in a rural Indian village (for example) are shown employing similar strategies, both effective...

In the village of Bisipara in eastern India, an anthropologist is witness to a drama when a young girl takes a fever and quickly dies. The villagers find Susilla's death suspicious and fear that she was possessed. Holding an investigation to find someone to blame, they carry out a hurried inquiry because the stage must be cleared for the annual...