My Favourite Levi-Strauss

‘Claude Levi-Strauss was one of the dominating postwar influences in French intellectual life and the leading exponent of Structuralism in the social sciences; his work inspired a school of academic followers in the 1960s and 1970s in disciplines ranging form music to literary criticism.’ – The Telegraph

‘Claude Levi-Strauss’ revolutionary studies of what was once called ‘primitive man’ transformed Western understanding of the nature of culture, custom and civilization. His legacy is imposing. Mythologiques, his four-volume work about the structure of native mythology in the Americas, attempts nothing less than an interpretation of the world of culture and custom, shaped by analysis of several hundred myths of little-known tribes and traditions. The volumes, published from 1964 to 1971, challenge the reader with their complex interweaving of theme and detail.’ – New York Times

‘…one of the preeminent anthropologists of the 20th century whose erudite, often mind-bendingly labored studies of indigenous Brazilian tribes led to influential theories about human behavior and culture…’ – The Washington Post

Dipankar Gupta taught sociology and social anthropology at Jawaharlal Nehru University for about 30 years, from January 1980 to July 2009, when he took early retirement. Author and editor of 15 titles, his latest publication is The Caged Phoenix: Can India Fly? He has taught in several universities in India and abroad.