The author considers the transformation of Lebanese feudalism into a communal system with burgeoning national consciousness. He places particular emphasis on the conflict between institutions and on the impact of nonpolitical organizations on the political system. Originally published in 1968. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Covers geographical area of Europe.

Under what conditions can democratic governments be formed and become stable? The author addresses this question in a unique way that brings sociological and political theory to bear on the study of traditional societies, long the preserve of historians and anthropologists. By examining in detail the history of four American Indian societies—the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, and the Creek—the author documents a general theory of politics and constitutional government. The four societies present an opportunity to study the process of democratic institution building in a controlled, comparative historical context. The societies were subject to similar geopolitical relations with the United States; they were incorporated into the same sequence of world economic system relations (initially fur trade and then the cotton market); they experienced the emergence of class structures; and they all produced some form of constitutional democracy. The Cherokee, however, adopted a stable constitutional government earlier and with less coercion than the other three nations. Why was this so? With the aid of comparative analysis, the author finds the answer in the Cherokee differentiation of politics from the nationally and religiously ordered clan system. This set of institutional relations allowed the Cherokee to maintain a strong sense of social solidarity while tolerating conflict, increased political differentiation, and formation of a political nationality. The other three societies were either less differentiated or less socially unified. They formed their constitutional governments thirty to forty years later than the Cherokee and with more internal political coercion—and, in the Creek case, with less political stability. The formation and stabilization of democratic state governments is a major issue in such contemporary phenomena as political change in Third World nations and the transformation of the governments of Eastern Europe. The four case studies presented in this hook form the basis of a new and powerful theoretical argument for understanding historical patterns of democratic change, political stability, and the relations of political power.

Vunamami attempts to isolate the dynamic that produces economic development by analyzing the interplay of forces over a ninety-year period in a village in the Tolai area of New Guinea. Theories that stress the importance of external forces in producing economic development, or contrast “traditional conservatism” with “innovative modernization,” view history through the eyes of outsiders and misconstrue the nature of traditional society. This "outside view" sees change as a result of external pressures; the “local view” regards outsiders only as triggers for processes of internal development, political initiatives, and the adaptation of technical innovations to local conditions, spurred by political entrepreneurs and technological innovators in the community . Richard F. Salisbury argues that without internal changes, technical innovations are uneconomical and destined to fail. Vunamami is optimistic about the potentialities of internal social change for producing economic development without foreign aid. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1970.