Millennium and charisma among Pathans : a critical essay in social anthropology

The Swat Pathans - the people of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakis tan-now belong administratively to Pakistan, but they are still a fiercely independent group, with their own codes and ways of life. Akbar S. Ahmed, who knows the Swat Pathans well through his family connections, presents clear and sophisticated a analysis of their complex society.

The study provides an anthro pological and critical re-examination of the ethnography of the Swat Pathans and the author suggests specific alter native models of social organization. The book also represents an important contribution to the general debate in the social sciences between the 'method ological individualists' and the 'method ological holists', and challenges some of the theoretical and methodological premises in anthropology. In particular the author is critical of Professor Fredrik Barth's study of Swat Pathans, for he believes that the Swat models' have inadvertently become the basis for generalized, and often incorrect, under standing of models of Pathan socio political organization in sciences. the social science.