Structure And Function In Primitive Society: Essays And Addresses
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: 6th pr.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Acceptable
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Yellowed
Markings: Ex-library with usual markings
At the crossroads of social theory and ethnographic inquiry stands Structure and Function in Primitive Society, a landmark collection that reshaped the foundations of modern anthropology. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, one of the foremost architects of British structural-functionalism, presents a series of rigorously argued essays and addresses that articulate his central thesis: that social institutions are best understood not in isolation, but through their functional relationships within a broader social structure. Drawing on fieldwork and comparative analysis across diverse societies, the collection chronicles the workings of kinship systems, ritual, sanctions, and social organisation with a clarity and intellectual precision that remains unmatched. Radcliffe-Brown's prose is measured and authoritative, reflecting the disciplined thinking of a scholar who sought to transform anthropology into a natural science of society — and largely succeeded. With a foreword by the eminent E. E. Evans-Pritchard and Fred Eggan, two giants in their own right, this volume arrives with the endorsement of an entire generation of social anthropologists. Its influence on subsequent theoretical discourse, from Lévi-Strauss's structuralism to contemporary kinship studies, is profound and enduring. For anyone seeking to understand how societies cohere, persist, and reproduce themselves, these essays remain as penetrating and provocative as the day they were first delivered.
Author: A. R. Radcliffe-Brown
Format: Hardback
Published: 1965, Cohen & West Ltd
Genre: Anthropology
Edition: 6th pr.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Acceptable
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Yellowed
Markings: Ex-library with usual markings
At the crossroads of social theory and ethnographic inquiry stands Structure and Function in Primitive Society, a landmark collection that reshaped the foundations of modern anthropology. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, one of the foremost architects of British structural-functionalism, presents a series of rigorously argued essays and addresses that articulate his central thesis: that social institutions are best understood not in isolation, but through their functional relationships within a broader social structure. Drawing on fieldwork and comparative analysis across diverse societies, the collection chronicles the workings of kinship systems, ritual, sanctions, and social organisation with a clarity and intellectual precision that remains unmatched. Radcliffe-Brown's prose is measured and authoritative, reflecting the disciplined thinking of a scholar who sought to transform anthropology into a natural science of society — and largely succeeded. With a foreword by the eminent E. E. Evans-Pritchard and Fred Eggan, two giants in their own right, this volume arrives with the endorsement of an entire generation of social anthropologists. Its influence on subsequent theoretical discourse, from Lévi-Strauss's structuralism to contemporary kinship studies, is profound and enduring. For anyone seeking to understand how societies cohere, persist, and reproduce themselves, these essays remain as penetrating and provocative as the day they were first delivered.