Includes bibliographical references p. 385-418 and index.

1. INTRODUCTION: ASIA AND THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
- What is anthropology?
- Anthropology as a social science
- Anthropological comparison
- Insiders and outsiders
- Emics/Etics
- Culture and its reproduction
- The Anthropological imagination

2. ASIAN ORIGINS: ARCHEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY
- Human evolution: biological evidence and argument
- Cultural evidence
- "Anatomically modern humans": Homo Sapiens sapiens
- China: archeological and Hominid fossil record
- Cultural record
- Southeast Asia: Archeological and Hominid Fossil record
- Australia: Archeological and Hominid fossil record
- The coming of Humans to Asia
- The coming of Asians to Asia
- After the Pleistocene

3. THE LINGUISTIC MOSAIC
- Design-features of human language
- The content of language
- Language, thought and culture: The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
- The Sapir-Whorf hyphothesis applied to Asia
- Linguistic diversity in Asia
- Language families in Asia
- Language typology of Asian languages
- Language contact in Asia
- Languages and their functions in society
- Languages and politics in Asia
- Summary

4. Asian families: domestic group formation
- Anthropological vocabulary for discussing families
- The lineal, corporate families of East and South Asia
- Joint family systems
- Further research

5. Ancestors and in-laws: knship beyond the family
- Marriage and alliance in highland Southeast Asia
- Marriage and alliance in South India
- Cousin marriage among South Asian Muslims
- Dowry and social stratification
- Bridewealth and dowry in China
- The corporate lineages of East
- Lineages based on fixed genealogies
- Minimally segmented corporate lineages
- Asymmetrically segmented lineages
- Lineages and social strafication
- Kinship and social change
- Further research

6. Fishermen, forest-eaters, peddlers, peasants, and pastoralists: economic anthropology
- Economic and social life
- Theoretical issues
- Markets and the division of labour
- Systems of economic organization
- Economy and society in Asian context
- The comparative perspective: rationality and ecology

7. Order under heaven: anthropology and the state
- "Oriental despotism"
- Ecological constraints on state formation
- The state and demographic constraints
- Stability and change in state systems
- Trade and state development
- Impact of European traders on regional states
- Trade and state development
- Impact of European traders on regional states
- Trade and state transformation
- Magico-religious ideas and state development
- Cults and political centralization
- Pre-modern centralized states
- Coercion and consent
- The modern state
- The "development" state
- Socialist states
- Dissent
- The state of State studies

8. Hierarchy and Dominance: class, status and caste
- Concepts
- Class and status in traditional China
- Caste
- Slavery
- Peasants
- Classless societies
- Modern egalitarian societies
- Emics and etics of hierarchy and dominance
- Exploitation?
- Anthropologists and the study od stratification

9. The ethnic mosaic
- Race and ethnicity
- If human unity, whence human diversity?
- Current theoretical trends and the understanding of ethnographies
- Ethnicity, ethnic group and ethnic relations
- Ethnicity and the state
- Ethnic boundaries
- Ethnic relations in Burma
- Ethnic relations in Thailand
- The contemporary state and ethnic revolts
- The dialectic and modalities of ethnicity and the contemporary state
- Ethnic conflict and voilence: Sri Lanka
- Conclusion

10. Women in Asia: Anthropology and the study of women
- The category "woman"
- Women and work
- The status of women
- Women, resemblance and diversity

11. Karma and cosmology: antropology and religion
- Theravada Buddhism
- Millenarianism
- Chinese religion
- Hinduism
- Popular religion
- Future studies

12. People in cities: anthropology in urban Asia
- Pre-capitalist urban society in Asia
- The impact of colonialism and capitalism
- Post-colonial society of contemporary Asian
- Cities and towns
- The anthropology of Urban asia
- People within cities
- Conclusions

13. Into the field: applied anthropology and the dilemmas of development
- Applied anthropology and colonialism
- Fieldwork and its uses
- The fieldwork paradox
- The development challenge in applied anthropology
- Irrigation and culture
- Sustainable environment
- Skill training and human resource development
- Health care and anthropology
- The challenge of anthropology
- The challenge of land reform
- Conclusion

14. Japan: the anthropology of modernity
- - Methodology
- Anthropology and modernization theory
- Socialization and classification
- Family and marriage in Japan: a structural approach
- Alternatives to the structural model
- Religious practices, cosmology and syncretism
- Where to next?

15. A global village? Anthropology in the future
- Macro-antropology
- Tourism and the search for cultural authenticity
- Tourism and ethnicity
- Anthropologists and ecology
- Anthropology in the future