“Giving Life, Giving Death delivers a challenge to both psychoanalysts and anthropologists. It makes something that neither group has wanted to see look like an obvious fact, namely that the desire and organization of human societies do not revolve around penisneid, the Oedipus complex (classically interpreted), or alliance, but instead around masculine envy of women’s power to give birth and relations of filiation as much as or more than alliance. Giving Life, Giving Death marks a turning point in the field.”—Alain Caillé, professor of sociology, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense
