The venerable and extensive literature on the theory of acoustic radiation forces and torques on small embedded particles is briefly reviewed, assessed, and criticized. This paper adopts a approach that first concentrates on determining the near field of a non-stationary embedded particle for the case when ka<<1. The near field is the region where r<1/k. The philosophy of matched asymptotic expansions is adopted and the near field is assumed to consist of (1) an oscillating incident wave, (2) an oscillating reaction wave that goes to zero at large r/a, (3) an oscillating incompressible field that is associated with viscosity, also going to zero at large r/a, and (4) a quasi-static field that is also associated with viscosity. The latter results in part from a perturbation expansion to take into account non-linear effects of the fluid dynamical equations. The far-field scattered wave results from asymptotic matching to the near-field. The near-field reaction field separates into monopole and dipole portions where the orientation of the dipole is related the detailed natures of incident wave and particle. Forces are obtained by integration of stresses over the surface of the body or over a surface slightly outside the particle. In appropriate limits, the predicted forces agree with results of King (1934) and Gorkov (1962).