Sociological and historical enquiry in Europe has had as a continuing pre-occupation the problem of the Uniqueness of the West, the search for factors that can be held responsible for its achievements in the modern world and in particular the emergence of industrial capitalism. That search has led to a devaluation of the East and consequently a mistaken self-understanding of the West. This article attempts to outline the problem with regard to rationality, commercial literacy (book-keeping), mercantile enterprise and family participation in such activity.

In spite of recent criticisms the concept of ethnicity should be retained in anthropological analysis to designate more or less coherent cultural entities. These entities will be fluctuating, of course, due to their position in a larger social space where women, goods, ideas, and institutions are exchanged. Ethnicity is not, as some have argued, a colonial invention, but an incontestable anthropological fact, where identity is nurtured by otherness. Ethnicity does not of itself have a political vocation: traditional African states were more often than notpluri-ethnic. The ‘national’ phenomenon, the convergence of the State and ethnicity, is rare in pre-colonial African history. The nation-state is a modern phenomenon, the product of a more or less arbitrary manipulation by an elite having a certain number of ethnic traits; a political re-modelling of collective identity.

Class inequality provides fertile ground for the development of class divisions in political interests. Post-communist societies display evidence of such inequality and — despite expectations to the contrary — of its correlates: high levels of class identification, perceived relative deprivation between classes, and links between class position and economic expectations. These aspects of class formation are in turn accompanied by the endorsement of divergent political programmes by social classes. Marketisation is thus providing the conditions under which classrelated, ‘left-right’ divisions reminiscent of those in Western democracies, structure politics in Eastern Europe.

Diet regulations and food prohibitions in the Koran are to be considered as parts of a system. Apart from alcohol and drugs, all of them deal with meat consumption. It is argued that meat has a symbolic connection with exchange and sociability as well as with otherness.

In a previous edition of the Archives, Vladimir Shlapentokh proposed an explanation of the surprising patience of the Russian people in the face of a drop in the standard of living of a majority of the population. Obervations made in the Altaï territory confirm Shlapentokh's explication. Using individual adaptation categories as formulated by Merton, it is shown how the different adaptation strategies cancelled each other out and impeded the emergence of an opposition movement.

Current interpretations of James Frazer's work overestimate the importance of the three stages theory (Magic-Religion-Science) and of individual reflection in the philosopbes sauvages. The Golden Bough is more about the idea of a universal and spontaneous psychological atmosphere, beyond the distinction between Religion and Magic. Frazer prefers to characterise this atmosphere through the explicit content of rites and beliefs, often neglected by twentieth century religious anthropology.

Hardin argues that ethnic conflicts can be analysed without reference to individual emotions, by using 3 parameters: the initiative of certain elites, the use of exclusive norms, and a good dose of epistemological perversity, admired if not shared. Beyond a certain critical mass, the mixture becomes explosive. Yeats' biography illustrates these arguments: Yeats' own emotions hardly weigh up against forces which cause him to be moved and create his emotion.

The central sociological issue in Weber's studies on charisma is to account for the emergence, the reproduction, and the eventual disappearance of reference systems. Such a preoccupation is in general keeping with a comprehensive sociology. Beyond that, these studies also aim to clarify the internal mutations of this type of legirimity, its possible conditions, notably in a religious form, relative to specifically modern notions of modernisation, secularisation and disenchantment.