The classical sociological question about the bases of social order is of great current interest. In our times there is a concern about the fate of solidarity and social ties similar to that at the end of the nineteenth century. In both eras significant social transformations were presumably affecting the “cement of society.” In the preceding chapters we returned to the works of the classical anthropologists and sociologists, as well as to more modern theories. Once again the classics proved invaluable to our understanding of the complexity of the current “problem of order.”

It is remarkable that so few attempts have been made to bridge anthropological and sociological theories on social ties and solidarity. In the same period that Durkheim described the transformation from mechanical to organic solidarity, anthropologists conducted detailed field studies about the origin of human societies in diverging cultures: from North American Indian tribes to the Maori tribes in New Zealand and the inhabitants of the Trobriand Islands.