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Homo Hierarchicus, Homo Equalis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

André Béteille
André Béteille
Affiliation:
University of Delhi
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Extract

I should like to pay my tribute to the memory of Kingsley Martin by calling in question a part of the conventional wisdom of what passes for comparative sociology. I hope I shall not appear unduly contentious in doing so. I should not like to speak badly of comparative sociology. At the same time, it has to be admitted that a truly comparative sociology exists less in the work that scholars actually do than in the ideals they profess. The principal obstacle to its growth is, in my opinion, neither lack of wit nor lack of words: it is prejudice.

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Type
Articles
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Modern Asian Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , October 1979, pp. 529 - 548
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

This is the text of Professor Béteille's Kingsley Martin Memorial Lecture, delivered in Cambridge on 7 March 1979.

1 Marshall, T. H., Sociology at the Crossroads and Other Essays (Heinemann: London, 1963), p. 72.Google Scholar

2 See, for instance, Glezerman, G., Socialist Society (Progress Publishers: Moscow, 1971), p. 106.Google Scholar

3 de Tocqueville, A., Democracy in America (Harper & Row: New York, 1966), p. 544.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., p. 535.

5 Ibid., p. 478.

6 Ibid., p. 477.

7 Ibid., p. 10.

8 Marx, K. and Engels, F., The German Ideology (Progress Publishers: Moscow, 1968), p. 190.Google Scholar

9 Wittfogel, K., Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (Yale University Press: New Haven, Conn., 1957).Google Scholar

10 Ibid., p. 138.

11 Dumont, L., Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications (Paladin: St Albans, 1972).Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 42.

13 Ibid., p. 46.

14 Dumont, L., From Mandeville to Marx: The Genesis and Triumph of Economic Ideology (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1977), p. 15.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., p. 9.

16 Chatterji, Bankimchandra, Bankim Rachanabali (in Bengali) (Sahitya Samsad: Calcutta, 1382 (Bengali calendar)), Vol. II, pp. 381–406.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., pp. 241–5.

18 Gandhi, M. K., My Varnashramadharma (Navjivan Publishing House: Ahmedabad, 1962).Google Scholar

19 In particular, Burmese Days and The Road to Wigan Pier.

20 Nehru, J., The Discovery of India (Meridian Books: London, 1951).Google Scholar