'Introducing Levi-Strauss and Structural Anthropology' traces the development of Levi-Strauss's thought from his early work on the function of the incest taboo to his identification of a timeless pensee sauvage ("wild" mode of thought) at work in the processes of cultural creation.
The book also pursues the major contribution that Levi-Strauss has made to contemporary aesthetic theory. His work on Amerindian myth - which brings out the fundamental role of transformations in acts of creation - provides a key insight into the way in which art itself comes into being. Boris Wiseman's incisive text, superbly illustrated by Judy Groves, provides a brilliant introduction to a major 20th-century thinker.