'… a welcome and significant addition to Cambridge University's excellent series on social and cultural anthropology … The book is a great contribution not only to studies on pastoralist Bedouin societies but to contemporary social anthropology at large. … one of the most insightful anthropological readings on Bedouin society, exhibiting both intimate knowledge and superb analysis.' Ethnos

Emrys Peters studied the Bedouin of Libya for more than thirty years. The handful of articles published during his lifetime were widely admired and are still essential reading for anthropologists. He left further significant papers unpublished at his death, and the editors have drawn on these for half of this collection, which brings together his major writings on the Bedouin. These seminal essays are not only of ethnographic interest. All Peters' work is informed by a rigorous theoretical intelligence, and his analysis of power in Bedouin society has fascinated many discerning social scientists.

List of illustrations
Foreword Jack Goody
Preface
Introduction Emanuel Marx
1. The Sanusi order and the Bedouin
2. The Bedouin way of life
3. The tied and the free
4. Aspects of the feud
5. Proliferation of segments
6. The power of shaikhs
7. Debt relationships
8. Family and marriage
9. Bridewealth
10. The status of women
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]