Discusses the significance of totemism among primitive peoples and its interpretation by anthropologists and philosophies.

Gregory Bateson was a philosopher, anthropologist, photographer, naturalist, and poet, as well as the husband and collaborator of Margaret Mead.

Through Pierre Bourdieu's work in Kabylia (Algeria), he develops a theory on symbolic power.

First Published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"Tzvetan Todorov, an internationally admired scholar, aims in this book to salvage the good name of the Enlightenment so that its ideas can once more inspire humane thought and action.

This groundbreaking book, winner of the 1974 Sorokin Award of the American Sociological Association, helped define for an entire generation of anthropologists what their field is ultimately about.

" Twenty years have passed, and Raymond Firth suggests that the book has moved over to a more central place in the literature of anthropological reflection.

"Originally published in 1948 as Dieu d'Eau, this near-classic offers a unique and first-hand account of the myth, religion, and philosophy of the Dogon, a Sudanese people.

By contrast, this book, which has become a classic, investigates them as epistemological phenomena in their own right.