This volume represents a systematic inquiry into various regional and special aspects of Soviet foreign economic policy, particularly Soviet efforts in the underdeveloped countries.

Oral traditions are historical sources of a special nature. Their special nature derives from the fact that they are "unwritten" sources couched in a form suitable for oral transmission, and that their preservation depends on the powers of memory of successive generations of human beings. In many parts of the world inhabited by peoples without writing, oral tradition forms the main available source for a reconstruction of the past. Do the special characteristics of oral traditions u "unwritten" information dependent on the memory of successive generations u invalidate them as sources of historical data? If not, are there means for testing their reliability? Professor Vansina shows in Oral Tradition that with knowledge of the language and of the society, the anthropologist and historian can extract or deduce the historical content of oral testimonies. Based on the author's many years of fieldwork in Africa, this definitive work explores the possibility of reconstructing the history of non-literate peoples from their oral traditions, surveys existing literature, offers a typology of oral traditions, and evaluates methods of collection and interpretation. On first publication, Daniel McCall in the American Anthropologist called Oral Tradition " a tour de force. Indeed this may well be the most significant work written on the relation of oral tradition to history in thirty yearsafor any field worker who intends to collect oral traditions, this work is indispensable."

Oral traditions are historical sources of a special nature. Their special nature derives from the fact that they are "unwritten" sources couched in a form suitable for oral transmission, and that their preservation depends on the powers of memory of successive generations of human beings. In many parts of the world inhabited by peoples without writing, oral tradition forms the main available source for a reconstruction of the past. Do the special characteristics of oral traditions u "unwritten" information dependent on the memory of successive generations u invalidate them as sources of historical data? If not, are there means for testing their reliability? Professor Vansina shows in "Oral Tradition" that with knowledge of the language and of the society, the anthropologist and historian can extract or deduce the historical content of oral testimonies. Based on the author's many years of fieldwork in Africa, this definitive work explores the possibility of reconstructing the history of non-literate peoples from their oral traditions, surveys existing literature, offers a typology of oral traditions, and evaluates methods of collection and interpretation. On first publication, Daniel McCall in the "American Anthropologist" called "Oral Tradition" " a tour de force. Indeed this may well be the most significant work written on the relation of oral tradition to history in thirty yearsafor any field worker who intends to collect oral traditions, this work is indispensable." "Jan Vansina" is professor emeritus of history and anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was named the "Distinguished Africanist" of 1986 and awarded the Herskovits Prize for "Kingdoms of the Savanna" in 1967, garnering the two top honors given by the African Studies Association. Vansina is the author of more than twenty books, including "Living with Africa" and "Paths in the Rainforests." "Selma Leydesdorff" is professor of oral history at the University of Amsterdam. She is co-editor of the Memory and Narrative Series published by Transaction. "Elizabeth Tonkin" is professor emerita of social anthropology at the Queen's University of Belfast. Her interests include the social construction and uses of historical recall, and she is the author of "Narrating Our Pasts."

The author puts this book in the best possible context by referring to the "magisterial and paradoxical Dr. Schumpeter". A figure in a rare class with John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich von Hayek, and Alfred Marshall, the work of Joseph Schumpeter is equalled only in monumental significance by his personal trials and tribulations. The work is divided into two volumes - the first covering his career in Europe and the second his life and achievements in America. Walt Rostow, in his Foreword, sums up Robert Loring Allen's achievement in biography and intellectual history thus: "In dealing with Schumpeter's life, Allen exhibits a rare consciousness of the extraordinary complexity and only limited penetrability of the human personality Schumpeter's closely interwoven personal and professional life unfolds, Allen develops without dogmatism a pattern of linkages for the reader to contemplate. In a splendid final passage, he provides a memorable summation." What makes this enormous effort so successful is the linkage of the personal and the professional, the biographical with the intellectual. Indeed, it is Schumpeter's single-minded determination to explain within a single, formal theory, the dynamics of capitalism that bridges the gap in space, time, and personality. To his books The Theory of Economic Development, and Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, both published by Transaction, is now added the specific contexts in which these and his other works were written. The author of this biography, like the subject himself, is a masterful student of the craft of economics, and its place within the larger social science contexts that Schumpeter worked. In this work, we are introduced into the main current of European and American social science alike. The title of the book, Opening Doors, derives from Schumpeter's life long aim to appeal to inquiring minds to move through such doors in an effort to create the social science of the future. In this, the volume succeeds admirably.

The author puts this book in the best possible context by referring to the "magisterial and paradoxical Dr. Schumpeter." A figure in a rare class with John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich von Hayek, and Alfred Marshall, the work of Joseph Schumpeter is equalled only in monumental significance by his personal trials and tribulations. The work is divided into two volumes - the first covering his career in Europe and the second his life and achievements in America.

Walt Rostow, in his Foreword, sums up Robert Loring Allen's achievement in biography and intellectual history thus: "In dealing with Schumpeter's life, Allen exhibits a rare consciousness of the extraordinary complexity and only limited penetrability of the human personality Schumpeter's closely interwoven personal and professional life unfolds, Allen develops without dogmatism a pattern of linkages for the reader to contemplate. In a splendid final passage, he provides a memorable summation."

What makes this enormous effort so successful is the linkage of the personal and the professional, the biographical with the intellectual. Indeed, it is Schumpeter's single-minded determination to explain within a single, formal theory, the dynamics of capitalism that bridges the gap in space, time, and personality. To his books "The Theory of Economic Development, "and "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, "both published by Transaction, is now added the specific contexts in which these and his other works were written.

The author of this biography, like the subject himself, is a masterful student of the craft of economics, and its place within the larger social science contexts that Schumpeter worked. In this work, we are introduced into the main current of European and American social science alike. The title of the book, "Opening Doors, "derives from Schumpeter's life long aim to appeal to inquiring minds to move through such doors in an effort to create the social science of the future. In this, the volume succeeds admirably.