III. The Use of Social Science Concepts to Interpret Historical Materials: Comments on the Two Preceding Articles

Extract

Although placed on canvasses of very different magnitude, the authors of the two preceding articles have posed similar questions. Both ask essentially, “What were the processes of adaptation during periods of culture contact in South Asia?” Neither author is particularly preoccupied with chronology and itemizing but rather with formulating the larger regularities within which events have occurred. The question they ask is the kind that social scientists rather than historians are likely to phrase. It is, however, a question of such a high level of generalization that few social scientists have had the courage to investigate it—even though its implications would be of inestimable theoretical importance to contemporary programs of international assistance.