Boris Wiseman

Introducing Levi-Strauss is a guide to the work of the great French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009). The book brilliantly traces the development and influence of Levi-Strauss' thought, from his early work on the function of the incest taboo to initiate an exchange of women between groups, to his identification of a timeless "wild" or "primitive" mode of thinking - a pensee sauvage - behind the processes of human culture. Accessibly written by Boris Wiseman and beautifully illustrated by Judy Groves, Introducing Levi-Strauss also explores the major contribution that Levi-Strauss made to contemporary aesthetic history - his work on American-Indian mythology provides a key insight into the way in which art itself comes into being. This is an essential introduction to a key thinker.