Caste and other inequities: essays on inequality

The essays included in this
volume cover twenty years'
development of the author's
research and thought in social
inequality and social justice in
India and cross-culturally.
They issue from the premise
that inequality within and among
nations is a major social
problem. The author holds that
institutionalized inequality is a
major cause of human anguish
and conflict. His own observation
and experience in the notorious
Alabama, USA brought home to
him the invidious working of this
social malaise.
This collection (of 18 essays
including 4 hitherto unpublished)
begins with Professor Berreman's
well-known, earliest article 'Caste
in India and the United States'
(1960), proceeds through
empirical and theoretical essays
on various systems of inequality,
rigid and flexible, rural and urban,
small scale and large, and
concludes with his most recent
one, 'Social Equality: A Cross-
Cultural Typology' (1978).
Several of the essays express
the author's interest in rural
social organisation in India inere
most of his research has been
conducted.
This is the work of a person for
whom social inequality is not a
matter of closed-door, academic
research but something that
touches his deepest convictions.
Assembled from widely scattered
sources, these essays were a
primary basis for award of the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy
honoris causa to the author by the
University of Stockholm in May
1978.
An authentic, refreshingly
different work that should
interest sociologists in India and
elsewhere.