Book Reviews
Abstract
BOOK REVIEWS outset, with the absence of any attempt to lay out an explicit theoretical perspective to structure what is to come. As a result I found myself on occasion getting quite impatient as I read the text: but how can he say this without considering x and y - only to find that within the next chapter, or a few score (or hundred) pages later, the author would always (well, almost always) turn to consider in depth those features, concepts or texts which I felt he was in danger of ignoring. The comprehensiveness of the study is most impressive. Instead, without a blueprint in sight, Wilson has built his account brick by brick, floor by floor - much like the dwellings of the extended family households he de- scribes. After a brief historical sketch of Corsica in the nineteenth century Wilson introduces us to the main features of feud in this period and demonstrates how their incidence peaked in the middle of the century, reflecting two consecutive trends during Corsica's incorporation within the French state: first, a period in which this incorporation, together with concurrent changes in the island's economy, appeared to encourage recourse to feuding about