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Village Life in South India: Cultural Design and Environmental Variation . By Alan R. Beals. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1974. 183 pp. Tables, Maps, Photographs, Index. $7.50 (cloth), $2.95 (paper).

Indian villages have been studied from diverse points of view. Starting in the 1950's and for several years thereafter, villages were often treated as isolable units for the analysis of particular areas of social life, such as caste, kinship, politics, and religion, in relation to a supposedly total system. There were also attempts to study villages in the context of regions, and as units responding to external influences. A third kind of focus was provided by the concepts of "Great Tradition" and "Little Tradition." Although the present village study by Professor Beals has the civilizational focus, it is quite distinct from the "Great Tradition-Little Tradition" approach in that it examines the functional effectiveness and flexibility of traditional institutions in the wider context of an ecological understanding of South Indian civilization.