Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss maintain that society is the source of the very categories of human thought. First published in the "Annee Sociologique" in 1903, this classic essay has been translated by Rodney Needham, who also provides a critical introduction. " "Primitive Classification"] will impress the reader with its quiet elegance, its direct, logical form, its clarity of style, its spirit of careful, yet bold, exploration." Harry Alpert, "American Journal of Sociology " "Particularly instructive for anyone who wonders what social anthropology is: how, if at all, it differs...
Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss maintain that society is the source of the very categories of human thought. First published in the "Annee Sociologiqu...
A brilliant example of the comparative method, ?The Gift? presents the first systematic study of the custom--widespread in primitive societies from ancient Rome to present-day Melanesia--of exchanging gifts. The gift is a perfect example of what Mauss calls a total social phenomenon, since it involves legal, economic, moral, religious, aesthetic, and other dimensions. He sees the gift exchange as related to individuals and groups as much as to the objects themselves, and his analysis calls into question the social conventions and economic systems that had been taken for granted...
A brilliant example of the comparative method, ?The Gift? presents the first systematic study of the custom--widespread in primitive socie...
First written by Marcel Mauss and Henri Humbert in 1902, A General Theory of Magic gained a wide new readership when republished by Mauss in 1950. As a study of magic in 'primitive' societies and its survival today in our thoughts and social actions, it represents what Claude Levi-Strauss called, in an introduction to that edition, the astonishing modernity of the mind of one of the century's greatest thinkers. The book offers a fascinating snapshot of magic throughout various cultures as well as deep sociological and religious insights still very much relevant today. At a period...
First written by Marcel Mauss and Henri Humbert in 1902, A General Theory of Magic gained a wide new readership when republished by Mauss in ...
Marcel Mauss (1872-1950) was the leading social anthropologist in Paris between the world wars, and his Manuel d'ethnographie, dating from that period, is the longest of all his texts. Despite having had four editions in France, the Manuel has hitherto been unavailable in English. This contrasts with his essays, longer and shorter, many of which have long enjoyed the status of classics within anthropology. We are therefore pleased to present, in the English language for the first time, this extraordinary work that is based on the more than thirty lectures Mauss delivered...
Marcel Mauss (1872-1950) was the leading social anthropologist in Paris between the world wars, and his Manuel d'ethnographie, dating from ...
Dieser Essay ist "die erste systematische und vergleichende Studie über das weit verbreitete System des Geschenkaustauschs und die erste Deutung seiner Funktion im Bezugsrahmen der gesellschaftlichen Ordnung. Mauss zeigt hier, was die eigentliche Natur und fundamentale Bedeutung solcher Institutionen wie des Potlatsch und des Kula ist, die uns auf den ersten Blick befremdlich oder sogar sinnlos und unverständlich erscheinen. Und wenn er uns zeigt, wie sie zu verstehen sind, erschließt er uns nicht nur den Sinn bestimmter Bräuche, etwa der nordamerikanischen Indianer, sondern zugleich den...
Dieser Essay ist "die erste systematische und vergleichende Studie über das weit verbreitete System des Geschenkaustauschs und die erste Deutung sein...
In seiner Schrift "La Nation", um 1920 unter dem Eindruck des Ersten Weltkriegs verfasst, entwickelte Marcel Mauss einen Begriff von "Nation", dem zufolge diese über sich hinaus zum Internationalismus treibt. Eine entscheidende Rolle spielte für ihn dabei ein "Sozialismus von unten", den er als "Nationalisierung" im Sinne einer allmählichen Bewusstwerdung der Nationen versteht, ihre ökonomischen Interessen selbst in die Hand zu nehmen. Große Hoffnungen setzte er dabei in den Völkerbund ("Société des Nations"). Den damaligen Zustand der...
Ein Schlüsseltext des 20. Jahrhunderts
In seiner Schrift "La Nation", um 1920 unter dem Eindruck des Ersten Weltkriegs verfasst, entwickelte...
