Reflections on Michael Banton's contribution to race and ethnic studies.

My association with Michael Banton and his contribution to the field of race and ethnic studies developed more than three decades ago when I bought a copy of his Race Relations (1967) at the University of California Berkeley Bookshop. At the time it was impossible to imagine that my study via Berkeley and London would take me to a lecturing post in the Department of Sociology that Michael Banton had established at the University of Bristol nor did I envisage then that I would be his colleague for the two decades leading up to his retirement. It is in this context of both professional and personal associations that this tribute offers some reflections on his intellectual biography, along with his contribution to what has come to be known as the race relations problematic, his thoughts on what was subsequently identified as the racism problematic, his critical interest in linking rational choice theory to race and ethnicity and his remarkable concern with international law and human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]