Designed to provoke controversy, the papers in this volume concentrate on two main themes: the study of myth and totemism. Starting with an English translation of La Geste d'Asdiwal, which is widely considered to be the most brilliant of all of Levi-Strauss's shorter expositions of his technique of myth analysis, the volume also contains criticism of this essay. The second part of the volume discusses how far Levi-Strauss's treatment of totemism as a system of category formation can be correlated with the facts that an ethnographer encounters in the field. First published in 1967.

Social and Economic Organization of the Rowanduz Kurds

Designed to provoke controversy, the papers in this volume concentrate on two main themes: the study of myth and totemism. Starting with an English translation of La Geste d'Asdiwal, which is widely considered to be the most brilliant of all of Levi-Strauss's shorter expositions of his technique of myth analysis, the volume also contains criticism of this essay. The second part of the volume discusses how far Levi-Strauss's treatment of totemism as a system of category formation can be correlated with the facts that an ethnographer encounters in the field. First published in 1967.

Social and Economic Organization of the Rowanduz Kurds

A study of elitism particularly concerned with Indian elites in the context of British influence and its aftermath. The problems delineated are by no means peculiar to the Indian subcontinent. Nearly all the developing countries of contemporary Asia, Africa and Latin America are entangled with their post-colonial heritage and the history of political elitism in all these countries has been similar. The papers consider who were members of the elites, in the sense of 'men at the top'. They enquire how they got there, how they continued to recruit themselves and what was their relationship with the British. The contributors, sociologists, economists, anthropologists, political scientists and historians, present each other with forms of evidence which are unfamiliar and, in sum, result in a study which destroys many of the conventional cliches of colonial historians.

Among the Berti of Northern Darfur (Sudan), as among many Muslim societies, the formal religious practices are predominantly the concern of men, while local, unorthodox customary rituals are performed mainly by women. It is usual to dismiss such local, popular practices as pre-Islamic survivals, but Professor Holy shows that the customary rituals constitute an integral part of the religious system of the Berti. Carefully analysing the symbolic statements made in Berti rituals, Professor Holy demonstrates that the distinction between the two classes of rituals is an expression of the gender relationships characteristic of the society. He also examines the social distribution of knowledge about Islam, and explains the role of the religious schools in sustaining religious ideas. The work is not only an ethnographic study of ritual, belief and gender in an African society. It also makes a significant contribution to current anthropological discussion of the interpretation and meaning of rituals and symbols.

Through the application of anthropological techniques for analysing myth the essays in this 1983 volume offer interesting and thought-provoking structuralist insights for a variety of particular cases in the Scriptures. They also give some account of past interactions between anthropologists and Christian theologians, and enter the debate on the historicity of Biblical events. Edmund Leach has been interested for many years in the implications of a structuralist mode of myth analysis for the explanation of scriptural texts and problems. His essays in this book continue the line of enquiry he first developed in Genesis as Myth (1969) and he pursues his arguments here with characteristic colour and brilliance of exposition. With the two pieces by Dr Alan Aycock on related themes, this volume makes a fascinating and controversial contribution to the study and interpretation of the Bible.

An introduction to the use of structuralist analysis in social anthropology, explaining semiology, elucidating the arguments of Barthes and Greimas, starting and ending with Lévi-Strauss' comparison of the symphony orchestra with a cultural system, and using throughout simple language.

The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars.Medical theory and practice of the 1700s developed rapidly, as is evidenced by the extensive collection, which includes descriptions of diseases, their conditions, and treatments. Books on science and technology, agriculture, military technology, natural philosophy, even cookbooks, are all contained here.++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++<sourceLibrary>British Library<ESTCID>T123391<Notes>Dedication signed: Edmund Leach. The tables are numbered, duplicating the pagination, but are not part of the register.<imprintFull>London: printed for Edmund Leach, and sold by Mess. Sewell and Richardson; Mr. Debrett; Mr. Flexney; Mr. Parsley, 1790]. <collation> 2], vi, 2],201, 1]p.,5plates, tables: map; 8

In this lucide guide to the often abstruse works of Claude Levi-Strauss, Edmund Leach synthesizes the thought of one of the twentieth century's greatest anthropologists and provides a thoughtful introduction to the theory and practice of structuralism. Leach organizes his work not by chronology but by theme, exploring three important topics in Levi-Strauss's work: human beings and their symbols, the structure of myth, and kinship theory. Written concisely and with great care and penetration, this brief book is both a fine introduction for the uninitiated reader of Levi-Strauss and a critical analysis that will prove valuable to those more familiar with the anthropologist's work.