This award-winning classic in the study of ethnicity, identity, and nation-building has a new introduction (on which Eric Wolf collaborated near the end of his life) that shows the continuing validity of the book’s innovative approach to ethnography, ecology, culture, and politics. The authors investigated two Alpine villages—the German-speaking community of St. Felix and Romance-speaking Tret—only a mile apart in the same mountain valley.

John W. Cole is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, President of the Northeastern Anthropology Association, and author or editor of four books in addition to The Hidden Frontier. Eric R. Wolf's many books include the influential Europe and the People Without History (California, 1982) and Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis (California, 1998).

“The fascination of the book lies in the manifest differences between two communities which have shared the same environmental preconditions. Although the physical obstacles to agricultural productivity and population pressures have been very similar for both villages, family structure, work organization, and political practices have differed substantially.” —Jürg K. Siegenthaler, Journal of Modern History

“Two very distinctive ‘types of nation formation’ emerge from the comparison. . . . There is a great deal in The Hidden Frontier that will be of interest to political scientists, economic and social historians, and anthropologists.” —Benjamin R. Barber, Reviews in European History

“A most impressive work, a weighty contribution to the study of peasant life and an ingenious and entirely convincing blend of ecology and history, of the small-scale and the large.” —F. G. Bailey, Contemporary Sociology

“A report outstanding among European ethnographies for its fine description, analytical originality, excellent documentation in the form of case material and quantitative data, and revealing photographs.” —John J. Honigmann, American Anthropologist