Introducing Lévi-Strauss is a guide to the work of the great French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908—2009). The book brilliantly traces the development and influence of Lévi-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 pensée sauvage—behind the processes of human culture. Accessibly written by Boris Wiseman and beautifully illustrated by Judy Groves, Introducing Lévi-Strauss also explores the major contribution that Lévi-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.
