Village Life in Northern India: Studies in a Delhi Village

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University of Illinois Press, 1958 - India - 384 pages
This book is an anthropological study of peasant life in India during the mid-20th century.

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Contents

Caste and the Jajmani System
55
Land Tenure and Economics 87 V
87
The Marriage Cycle
157
Copyright

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About the author (1958)

Oscar Lewis, an American anthropologist, was renowned for his studies of poverty in Mexico and Puerto Rico and for his controversial concept of "the culture of poverty." After graduating from Columbia University, where he studied under Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas, and Margaret Mead, his first major book, Life in a Mexican Village (1951), was a restudy of Robert Redfield's village of Tepoztlan, which reached a number of conclusions opposed to those reached by Redfield. Much of the controversy over the culture of poverty disappeared when Lewis labeled it a subculture; ironically, reactionaries have used the concept to blame the poor for their poverty, whereas Lewis believed the poor to be victims. Many of his books are based on tape recordings of family members, a technique in which Lewis was a pioneer.

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