Description
This is the first major attempt in modern anthropology at studying friendship on a cross-cultural basis. The collection brings together field studies from Ireland, Canada, Africa, and New Guinea (including an essay on friendship among the primates). In addition, Robert Paine, Cora Du Bois and S. N. Eisenstadt each provide theoretical approaches to our understanding of the friendship bond in human behaviour.
Reviews
The Compact is well worth reading. It goes a long way towards fitting people and their idiosyncratic likes and dislikes into our analyses of social systems.
- R. R. Larsen, Canadian Review of Sociology