Claude Lévi-Strauss: The Formative Years

Claude Lévi-Strauss, the most celebrated of twentieth-century anthropologists, has influenced the entire field of the humanities and social sciences. Looking at the formative part of his career, Christopher Johnson examines his definitions of anthropology; theory of structuralism; ideas on modern and "primitive" civilizations; and autobiographical writing. This book explains Lévi-Strauss' thought and explores the different intellectual contexts that influenced it.