The names given to the subject matter of this book have changed many times as each comes to be regarded as pejorative. Even now the name of the faculty of the College dealing with the psychiatry which complicates limited intellectual ability differs from nomenclature used by other professions in the UK and that used by colleagues in North America. Parents, administrators and those who broadcast or produce articles in newspapers absorbed by the general public are all confused. The problems of classification and definition also reflect political and philosophical differences which have made, and continue to make, major intrusions into the lives of people who themselves are given little or no say.

The contributors in this volume are anthropologists, sociologists and educationalists. The academic grounding lying behind each contribution is consistent, covering politics, philosophy, human development and the demands and advantages of cultural background. The tone towards those who fail to live up to society's demands is gentle. Less forgiving is the polite but firm criticism of those who advocate or operate exclusion, without any attempt to understand the social context in which a person is judged to have failed as an actual or potential citizen. The field work reported brings the problems and the triumphs to life. The accounts of the societies described are full of rich relevant data, beautifully reported.

Professor Jenkins acknowledges the giant in this field of the social anthropology of disability — Robert Edgerton's book The Cloak of Competence, published in Reference Edgerton1967, which inspired much of the research leading up to the publication of the present volume. It is sincerely hoped that that is a book that is in every departmental library, showing the signs of 30 years of hard use. There are many more extensive books and some more strictly academic. Yet here is a collection of essays with evidence of the rich humanity of those often dismissed, excluded or even denied the right to live in the societies in which they were born.

Questions of Competence has earned a place near The Cloak of Competence. It should be read by all junior psychiatrists and by the more senior who sometimes give the impression that intellectual disability marks a different species and hence is no business of theirs.