An Introduction to Two Theories of Social Anthropology

The book is a translation of Louis Dumont's lectures on kinship, which provide a comprehensive but also idiosyncratic overview of descent theory and alliance theory for students. These two competing theories of kinship, associated respectively with the British and French schools of social anthropology, as well as the theoretical tendencies of functionalism and structuralism, dominated anthropological theory from the 1950s to the 1970s and are of fundamental historical significance. But Dumont's lectures also have stood the test of time and provide an excellent introductory account of kinship for the student. They also reflect his own structuralist sympathies and critical acumen in assessing the work of many of anthropology's great theoretical minds, among which he himself should be numbered.