Louis Dumont, who died in 1998, was one of the most important figures in post-war French anthropology. He is well-known for his early work on India, which culminated in Homo Hierarchicus (1966; in English 1972, 1980), an anthropological account of the caste system. He later extended this work into a comparison of the values of Indian and western society in works like Essays on Individualism (1986) and German ideology: From France to Germany and Back (1994). He is also known for pioneering work on kinship in south India and more generally (for example Affinity as a Value, 1983). The current volume represents the fruits of this side of his activities and originated in as a series of lectures providing an account of the British and French schools for students. Robert Parkin is a Departmental Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. He has a longstanding interest in the anthropology of kinship, represented by Kinship: an Introduction to Basic Concepts (1997) and Kinship and Family: n Anthropological Reader (2004, edited with Linda Stone). He has also published a full-length study of Dumont in the same Berghahn series (Louis Dumont and hierarchical opposition, 2003).

Book Information
ISBN 9781845451479
Author Robert Parkin
Format Paperback
Page Count 150
Imprint Berghahn Books
Publisher Berghahn Books
Weight(grams) 211g