In Les Structures Elementaires de la Parente, the early opus magnum of French Structuralism, Levi-Strauss tries to explain the systems of kinship and marriage in their enormous diversity and their frequently bizarre institutions, by means of a single principle: the exchange. Exchange is perceived to be the manifestation of fundamental structural constants of the human mind which may also be discerned in other subsystems of culture, most obviously in language. This book represents the first great result of the author's life-long research, dedicated to exploring this relationship,...
In Les Structures Elementaires de la Parente, the early opus magnum of French Structuralism, Levi-Strauss tries to explain the systems of ki...
The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss was one of the greatest intellectuals of the twentieth century. His work has had a profound impact not only within anthropology but also linguistics, sociology and philosophy. In this short book he examines the nature and role of myth in human history, distilling a lifetime of writing into a few sharp insights. It is a crystalline overview of many of the basic ideas underlying his work, including the theory of structuralism and the difference between 'primitive' and 'scientific' thought and shows why Levi-Strauss remains a hugely important...
The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss was one of the greatest intellectuals of the twentieth century. His work has had a profound impact not only ...