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Synopsis This book on Lepchas is outstanding because it differentiates the administrative and anthropological concepts of tribe and examines both critically. In the theoretical front, the book considers two important concepts: social formation (as propounded by Marx) and social embeddedness (as development by Polanyi) as relevant in identifying a tribe. It observes that theoretically social formation is often a concrete combination of different modes of production organized under the dominance of one of them. This has been noticed in case of the Lepchas as well in the case of their movement from tribe to market oriented mode of production. Some important issues relating to the various approaches in conceptualizing tribe as an ideal construction have been critically examined. It is an addition to the existing tribal studies with some challenging and innovative designs which all scholars and researchers might find very much relevant and interesting.