A pioneering venture, this book is the first major effort toward a valid comparison of the political systems of Asia, Africa, the Near East, and Latin America.

After establishing a theoretical framework based on a functional approach to comparative politics, the authors apply their scheme to Southeast Asia (Lucian W. Pye), South Asia (Myron Weiner), SubSaharan Africa (James S. Coleman), the Near East (Dankwart Rustow), and Latin America (George I. Blanksten). In each area they survey the political background, the nature and function of political, governmental, and authoritative structures, the processes of change and means of political integration. The contributors have performed an extraordinarily difficult feat of classification, description, synthesis, and analysis in what promises to be a book of seminal importance in comparative politics.