Presents essays that take a variety of positions on the matter of the retreat of the social. This book aims to demonstrate that if anthropology and other social sciences are to fulfill the task of a critical understanding of the diverse realities in which we all must live, it will find it impossible to do without a strong concept of the social.

Introduction: The Social Construction of Reductionist Thought and Practice Bruce Kapferer Chapter 1. The Relocation of the Social and the Retrenchment of the Elites Jonathan Friedman Chapter 2. Legends of Fordism: Between Myth, History, and Foregone Conclusions George Baca Chapter 3. More Power to You, or Should It Be Less? Christopher C. Taylor Chapter 4. Methodological Individualism and Sociological Reductionism Roger Just Chapter 5. Reductionism and Misunderstanding Human Sociality Thomas Ernst Chapter 6. Theories and Ideologies in Anthropology Jukka Siikala Chapter 7. Death of the Indian Social Rohan Bastin Chapter 8. When Nothing Stands Outside the Self André Iteanu Chapter 9. From Bell Curve to Power Law: Distributional Models between National and World Society Keith Hart