"The first part devoted to theory, and the second to fieldwork in Africa, this collection of essays on economic anthropology by nine French Marxists is concerned essentially with the investigation and analysis of precapitalist social and economic formations, through the modes of production which characterise them, and of their transformations. It is intended to provide the English-speaking reader with an introduction to the important and exciting discussion that has been developing over the last 15 or so years in France, which raises fundamental questions about the way in which a truly scientific study of society should be conducted, and which goes some considerable way towards answering those questions."--Back cover.