Johann P. Arnason is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia and Associate of the Department of Historical Sociology in the Faculty of Human Studies at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. He is the author of Civilizations in Dispute: Historical Questions and Theoretical Traditions and editor of many books, including (with Marek Hrubec) Social Transformations and Revolutions: Reflections and Analyses. Chris Hann is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. He is the coauthor (with Keith Hart) of Economic Anthropology: History, Ethnography, Critique and the coeditor (with Stephen Gudeman) of Economy and Ritual: Studies of Postsocialist Transformations.

This volume brings social and cultural anthropologists into dialogue with historical sociology and illustrates the continued potential of the concept of civilization for all participants.