"The first edition of System, Structure, and Contradiction was an important step in combining materialist and cultural approaches in a larger framework of social reproduction. This new edition of Friedman's much-cited work contains the full text of the original volume - never published in North America - along with two related articles by the author, and a comprehensive new introduction that brings his theoretical notions, and the debate over this book, to the present.

A classic work of anthropological and social theory, it will be of interest to scholars and their advanced students in anthropology and related disciplines."--BOOK JACKET.