contents -- Introduction: Engaging Radical Egalitarianism -- Religion, Trade, and Transnational Networks via Thailand -- The Charisma of Saints and the Cult of Relics, Amulets, and Tomb Shrines -- Understanding Social Totalities: Stanley Tambiah's Early Contribution to Sociology of Thai Buddhism -- Transnational Buddhism and the Transformations of Local Power in Thailand -- A Muslim King and His Buddhist Subjects: Religion, Power, and Identity at the Periphery of the Thai State -- Cosmologies, Ideologies, and Localities -- Economies of Ghosts, Gods, and Goods: The History and Anthropology of Chinese Temple Networks -- Trade, Religion, and Civic Relations in the Manangi Long-Distance Trade Community -- Cosmologies of Welfare: Two Conceptions of Social Assistance in Contemporary South Africa -- "A Recurrence of Structures" in Collapsing Nigeria -- People and Ideas Travel Together: Tambiah's Approach to Ritual and Cosmology in Brazil -- Paradoxes of Order in Thai Community Politics -- Violence, Political Confl ict, and Humanitarian Intervention -- Structural Work: How Microhistories Become Macrohistories and Vice Versa -- Perspectives on the Politics of Peace in Aceh, Indonesia -- A Tale of Two Affects: Humanitarianism and Professionalism in Red Cross Aid Work -- At the Base of Local and Transnational Conflicts: The Political Uses of Inferiorization -- Aft erword. Galactic Polities, Radical Egalitarianism, and the Practice of Anthropology: Tambiah on Logical Paradoxes, Social Contradictions, and Cultural Oscillations -- notes -- bibliography -- contributors.