Natural Symbols
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.
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Paperback. Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
A landmark work in the field of social anthropology, Natural Symbols presents Mary Douglas's groundbreaking argument that the human body serves as a natural symbol through which societies express their deepest social structures and cosmological beliefs. Drawing on cross-cultural research, Douglas illustrates how attitudes toward bodily control, ritual, and symbolism directly reflect the grid and group pressures operating within different social systems. Written with intellectual rigour and analytical precision, the book argues that anti-ritualism — the modern dismissal of outward symbolic behaviour — is itself a product of specific social structures rather than spiritual progress. A seminal text that has shaped decades of anthropological and religious thought, it remains essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the relationship between symbolic systems, the body, and social organisation.
Author: Mary Douglas
Format: Paperback
Genre: Anthropology
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good to fair. Paperback. Page Condition: Good - possible tanning. Markings: possible previous owner inscription.
A landmark work in the field of social anthropology, Natural Symbols presents Mary Douglas's groundbreaking argument that the human body serves as a natural symbol through which societies express their deepest social structures and cosmological beliefs. Drawing on cross-cultural research, Douglas illustrates how attitudes toward bodily control, ritual, and symbolism directly reflect the grid and group pressures operating within different social systems. Written with intellectual rigour and analytical precision, the book argues that anti-ritualism — the modern dismissal of outward symbolic behaviour — is itself a product of specific social structures rather than spiritual progress. A seminal text that has shaped decades of anthropological and religious thought, it remains essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the relationship between symbolic systems, the body, and social organisation.