This book is an historical anthropological study of Congolese society (primarily the Lower Congo region) in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its primary focus is the transition from a pre-colonial to a colonial order. The approach is "global anthropology" that seeks to understand social and cultural transformation as the historical product of global relations. Friedman demonstrates that much of "traditional" Congolese society and culture is a product of the transformation generated by integration of the region into the world system. He shows that phenomena that have been accepted as fixed cultural structure such as the kinship system, fetishism and cannibalism are historical products of a turbulent transition. The book combines structural analysis of social and cultural logics with a framework that stretches from the self to the global system to grasp the nature of social transformation.

First Published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.