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John Lyons: Introduction to theoretical linguistics, X, 519 pp. Cambridge: University Press, 1968. 70s.

This book contains the 18 papers presented to the Seminar, preceded by an 80 pp. introduction contributed by Professors Allott, Epstein, and Gluckman, which makes use of the discussions which occurred in the actual meetings of the Seminar. It is an extremely difficult book for a single reader to review, for two reasons. Firstly, because the contributors are divided into two distinct categories: lawyers and anthropologists. The interests, intellectual assumptions, experience, and terminology of the two categories are on the whole diverse, and their papers are not, therefore, readily comparable. Secondly, the general quality of the papers varies tremendously. It would appear that at least some of the participants had at that time rather little to say, but that they had to say something in the circumstances. This is a common feature of many such seminars and of their published proceedings; and no doubt the actual discussions and interaction amongst the participants in the Seminar were most valuable to them. Nevertheless, readers of this symposium will find rather poor material and inadequate analysis in some of these papers. Thus, this is a most uneven volume, just as volumes from the previous Seminars have been. Those familiar with its predecessors will therefore be prepared for the mixture as before. Readers will find some excellent papers by any standard, some useful contributions to particular topics or to knowledge of particular areas of Africa, some run of the mill work which offers little that is new and often repeats previously published material, and some downright poor papers. With the exception of the last category, it is probable that lawyers and anthropologists will not altogether agree on the allocation to these categories. What is new, or worth while re-emphasizing, to the anthropologist may often not appear so perhaps to the lawyer, and vice versa. As an enterprise in mutual education, the Seminar and thus this volume can be justified specifically on that basis, for there is obvious need for it as both sides would agree. While this may well be the case, then, the book itself remains a rather heterogeneous collection of papers without any discernible intellectual raison d'etre of content and mode of treatment. To this reviewer it seems probable that, like its predecessors, the book will be important as the locus of some useful papers and references, and that these will differ for the two disciplines concerned.