This collection of essays on the themes of social organization, kinship and religion provides an excellent guide for English-speaking scholars to the understanding of French structuralist thought. In his introduction Luc de Heusch, a distinguished Belgian anthropologist, recalls his first contact with colonial Africa in the Belgian Congo in 1953 4. In Part I, conscious of the difference between French anthropology and the British tradition, he pursues a friendly dialogue with Mary Douglas, enters into a polemic with Rodney Needham concerning kinship structures, and discusses structural change...

Atlantis remains a perrenial fascination, wild theories as to its whereabouts abound and it sits only just behind the Grail, the Templars and so on in the volume of pseudoarchaeology it has inspired. Here the eminent historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet in what was to be his last work wastes little time in dismissing the arguments for a 'real' Atlantis, he has done that elsewhere, but instead concentrates on the uses that have been made of the myth of Atlantis by those who have chosen to believe in its actual existence. During antiquity the myth was more often than not seen as precisely that, and it...

In Comparing the Incomparable, Marcel Detienne challenges the cordoning off of disciplines that prevent us from asking trans-cultural questions that would permit one society to shed light on another. Some years ago, he undertook the study of "construction sites" grouped around general questions to be put to historians and ethnologists about their particular areas of expertise. Four of these comparative experiments are presented in the chapters of this book. The first concerns myths and practices related to the founding of cities or sacred spaces from Africa to Japan to Ancient Greece....

The Economy of the Greek Cities offers readers a clear and concise overview of ancient Greek economies from the archaic to the Roman period. Leopold Migeotte approaches Greek economic activities from the perspective of the ancient sources, situating them within the context of the city-state (polis). He illuminates the ways citizens intervened in the economy and considers such important sectors as agriculture, craft industries, public works, and trade. Focusing on how the private and public spheres impinged on each other, this book provides a broad understanding of the political...

Herodotus's great work is not only an account of the momentous historical conflict between the Greeks and the Persians but also the earliest sustained exploration in the West of the problem of cultural difference. Francois Hartog asks fundamental questions about how Herodotus represented this difference. How did he and his readers understand the customs and beliefs of those who were not Greek? How did the historian convince his readers that his account of other peoples was reliable? How is it possible to comprehend a way of life radically different from one's own? What are the linguistic,...

In Comparing the Incomparable, Marcel Detienne challenges the cordoning off of disciplines that prevent us from asking trans-cultural questions that would permit one society to shed light on another. Some years ago, he undertook the study of "construction sites" grouped around general questions to be put to historians and ethnologists about their particular areas of expertise. Four of these comparative experiments are presented in the chapters of this book. The first concerns myths and practices related to the founding of cities or sacred spaces from Africa to Japan to Ancient Greece....

Philippe Descola has become one of the most important anthropologists working today, and Beyond Nature and Culture has been a major influence in European intellectual life since its French publication in 2005. Here, finally, it is brought to English-language readers. At its heart is a question central to both anthropology and philosophy: what is the relationship between nature and culture?
Culture as a collective human making, of art, language, and so forth is often seen as essentially different from nature, which is portrayed as a collective of the nonhuman world, of plants,...

Basic Portuguese: A Grammar and Workbook comprises an accessible reference grammar and related exercises in a single volume.

Twenty units cover the core material which students can expect to encounter in their first year of learning Portuguese. Grammar points are followed by examples and exercises which allow students to reinforce and consolidate their learning.

Clearly presented and user-friendly, Basic Portuguese provides readers with a thorough grounding in the fundamentals of Portuguese grammar.

Using myths such as those of Persephone, Bellerophon, Helen and Teiresias, Claude Calame presents an overview of Greek mythology as a category inseparable from the literature in which so much of it is found.