When published in Norway nearly thirty years ago, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries marked the transition to a new era of ethnic studies. Today this much-cited classic is regarded as the seminal volume from which stems much current anthropological thinking about ethnicity.

Ethnic Groups and Boundaries opens with Barth's invaluable thirty-page essay that introduces readers to important theoretical issues in the analysis of ethnic groups. Following is a collection of seven essays - the results of a symposium involving a small group of Scandinavian social anthropologists - intended to illustrate the application of Barth's analytical viewpoints to different sides of the problems of polyethnic organization in various ethnographic areas, including Norway, Sudan, Ethiopia, Mexico, Afghanistan, and Laos.