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Levi-Strauss, Claude (Subject) & Wilcken, Patrick (Author) : Claude Levi-strauss: Poet In The Laboratory

The Penguin Press, New York City, NY, 2010

ISBN 1594202737

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 405 pages. The first full-length biography in English on subject. One of the most important cultural events of our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Patrick Wilcken's "Claude Levi-Strauss: Poet In The Laboratory". The definitive account of the life, work, and legacy of Claude Levi-Strauss, father of modern anthropology, and one of the postwar era's most influential thinkers. "Just as Freud had shaken up the antiquarian discipline of psychiatry so had Levi-Strauss revolutionized anthropology, transforming it from the Colonial-era study of 'exotic' tribes to one consumed with fundamental questions about the nature of humanity and civilization itself. Levi-Strauss was both a hero to contemporary intellectuals and an international celebrity. Gives the reader a fascinating intellectual tour of the anthropologist's landmark works: 'Tristes Tropiques', a literary meditation on his travels and fieldwork; 'The Savage Mind', which showed that 'primitive' people are driven by the same intellectual curiosities as their Western counterparts; and finally, his monumental four-volume 'Mythologiques', a study of the universal structures of native mythology. An evocative journey and an intellectual biography of one of the twentieth-century's most influential minds" (Publisher's blurb). Levi-Strauss' nemeses were "culture" and "history", which keep people apart and make them think they are either superior or inferior to others. His faith was in "myth" and his weapon was science, which, by definition, seeks and discovers universal truths that transcend specific cultures and histories. His greatest contribution, still intensely debated to this day, was to dissolve the distinction between the "primitive" and the "modern" mind. It remains a mind-boggling insight, but the truth is always radical. "The scientific mind does not provide the right answers as much as it asks the right questions" (Claude Levi-Strauss). An absolute "must-have" title for Claude Levi-Strauss collectors. This title is a contemporary classic. As far as we know, this is the only copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce copy thus. One of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 1594202737.

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