Wild Thought

Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009) is the most important anthropologist of the twentieth century, a leader in structuralist thought, and one of the key figures in the history of modern thought. He held the chair of social anthropology at the College de France between 1959 and 1982 and was elected a member of the Academie francaise in 1973. His many influential works include Tristes Tropiques, Structural Anthropology, Totemism, and Wild Thought, among others. The Press has published many English editions of his works. Jeffrey Mehlman is University Professor of French at Boston University. He is the author of several books, as well as a translator of many texts by Lacan and Derrida, among others. John Leavitt is a translator and professeur titulaire of anthropology at the University of Montreal. He is the author of Linguistic Relativities and the editor of Poetry and Prophecy.

• Translators’ Introductionby John LeavittProspectus for La Pensée sauvage, 1962Preface1    The Science of the Concrete2    The Logic of Totemic Classifications3    Systems of Transformation4    Totem and Caste5    Categories, Elements, Species, Numbers6    Universalization and Particularization7    The Individual as Species8    Time Regained9    History and DialecticAppendix: On the Wild PansyBibliographyNotes to the TranslationIndex

“The arrival of Mehlman and Leavitt’s new translation is, then, an event. Finally, there is a fresh, agile English rendering of one of the 20th century’s greatest, strangest and most challenging works.”