BOOK REVIEWS 69 truly form the backbone of Marxist analysis of prehistoric societies. In fact, not only Marx and Engels but several anthropologists demonstrated the materialism of Morgan.17 Notwithstanding his assertions on original sexual promiscuity, on matrilineal descent antedating patrilineal descent, and several other viewpoints, which arc now regarded as very doubtful, his valuable contribution is to be found in his treatment of the stratified and central-authority-based societies as determined by the development of property. If nothing else, Morgan has articulated a materialist interpretation of primitive society which the pedantic anthropologists have profitably pondered over for sometime. The book, in fact, is thus strewn with highly provocative insights here and there; anthropologists even today find it handsomely rewarding to read the book carefully and assimilate its content in their analytical structure. JAGANATH PATHY 1 Lewis H Morgan, Ancient Society, The World Publishing Co, Meridian Books, Cleveland and New York 1963. First published in 1877. 3 The main features of historical materialism are expounded by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology and again by Marx in the preface to the Critique of Political Economy and Capital, vol 1. 8 Morgan, op cif., p 311. 4 Ibid., pp 9 and 10. 5 Ibid.,? 51. 6 Ibid., p 19 7 Friedrich Engels, "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State^, Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1970, p 465. 8 Morgan, op. cif., pp 508-9. • J6frf.,p485. »o Ibid.,? 535. ^ JW.,pp387and441. 'a Ibid.,p3S5. i8 Ibid., pp 39 and 58. 14 Ibid., pp 5-6. IB Ibid.,? 552. le Engels, op. cit. 17 Among others T Harding and E Leacock, "Morgan and Materialism: A Reply to Professor Opier", Current Anthropology 5, 1964, pp 109-110.