Anthropologie structurale [un-]deux.

[Paris:] Librairie Plon,, 1958 & 1973. Presentation copies to a fellow anthropologist of the scarce and true first editions First editions, first impressions, of the author's groundbreaking initial collections of his works, both presentation copies, inscribed to the social anthropologist and ethnologist Sir Raymond Firth on the half-titles, "A Raymond Firth, avec l'amitié de Claude Lévi Strauss" and "To Raymond Firth, with warmest regards, Claude Lévi Strauss". Firth (1901-2002) was a lecturer at the London School of Economics and became particularly well known for his study of Maori culture. Lévi-Strauss admired Firth's work and contributed to the papers read at the celebration of Firth's life and works in 2004. The six cuttings laid in to Anthropologie structurale contain reviews of ethnographic, economic, and anthropological works by Raoul and Laura Makarius, Serge Latouche, and Bernard Delfendahl, as well as the front cover for the 1973 catalogue for Editions Anthropos. The five documents laid in to Deux are: a) Three-page signed typewritten draft of Firth's review of D. M. Goodfellow's Principles of Economic Sociology (1939), published in the Royal Institute of Philosophy's journal (1941), annotated by Firth. b) Four-page printed review of La Pensée sauvage by Nur Yalman from the American Anthropologist. c) Note card from Lévi-Strauss to Firth dated 15 May 1968. d) Note card from Firth to unknown recipient, dated 24 May 1977. e) Note on paper, possibly in Firth's handwriting, discussing the translation of the title of Lévi-Strauss's La Pensée sauvage. f) Note on yellow paper, possibly in Firth's handwriting, laid in to p. 139, on the distinction between formalism and structuralism. Lévi-Strauss is notable for exporting structuralism from France and giving it new international prominence. He based his school of thought on the notion that "underneath the tremendous diversity of cultural practices there are universal processes of thought. All humans have a mental structure that leads them to think in certain ways and that underlies all cultural behaviour. The reason cultures differ from one another is that a society's history and environment mould people's way of seeing and understanding reality. [Lévi-Strauss] tries to penetrate these differing surface manifestations to get at the basic mental structure that underlies them. For Lévi-Strauss, structural anthropology tries to show how these surface phenomena reflect the underlying universal structures of thought" (Moberg, p. 269). Together, these separately published collections present an assemblage of foundational essays written over the course of nearly two decades and which were key to the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. Two works, octavo. Un: 4 double-sided photographic plates, numerous illustrations to the text. Deux: 13 diagrams to the text. A few neat pencil and ink annotations to contents. Un: uncut and partly unopened in original paper wrappers, spine and wrappers lettered and ruled in black and red. With 6 cuttings stapled and laid in. Deux: original black cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket and 6 documents laid in. Housed in a red cloth flat-back box by the Chelsea Bindery. Un: spine sunned, wrappers creased, extremities nicked, hinges cracked but firm. Deux: spine ends rubbed, corners gently bumped, a few small nicks to dust jacket extremities. Both very good copies. Mark Moberg, Engaging Anthropological Theory: A Social and Political History, 2013.