Trans-Himalayan Traders: Economy, Society and Culture in Northwest Nepal (PB) (2017)

-This groundbreaking work was conducted in the late 1960s, together with a recent follow-up volume (Trans-Himalayan Traders Transformed, ISBN 9789745242029 which traces the evolution that has occurred in northwestern Nepal in the subsequent five decades) -It will be of interest to social scientists, developmental workers, and others focused on the changing South and Central Asian worlds On an isolated Himalayan hillside in northwest Nepal, the village that was the subject of this groundbreaking study in the late '60s was two weeks' walk from the nearest commercial transportation. Yet it was as culturally complex as it was remote. While the villagers were largely self-sufficient, it was the ways in which they still depended on outside forces that anthropologist Fisher analyzes in this compelling work. Republished almost 50 years after the original fieldwork, to coincide with the publication of a recent follow-up investigation by Fisher (Trans-Himalayan Traders Transformed, ISBN 9789745242029), the two volumes provide a fascinating and significant view of the evolution of this once-remote culture. (Reprint; originally published by University of California Press, 1987.) ...Well researched, well analysed and equally well-written ethnography. The author's style is insightful and easy-going, with a certain wit and frankness - exceptionally good. Donald A. Messerschmidt, Mountain Research and Development, Vol. 6, No. 4. Contents: Acknowledgments, Note on Orthography, 1 Introduction, 2 The Land and Its People, 3 Himalayan Farmers, 4 Transactions: The Salt Circuit, 5 Transactions: The Commodities Circuit, 6 Control and Uses of Wealth: The Traditional Context, 7 Transactions: The Village Context, 8 Summary and Conclusions: Ethnicity and Interaction, Appendices, Notes, Bibliography, Index