We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Comme les mathématiques ou la musique, l'ethnographie est une des rares vocations authentiques. On peut la découvrir en soi, même sans qu'on vous l'ait enseignée.
(Like mathematics or music, anthropology is one of the few genuine vocations. One can discover it in oneself, even though one may have been taught nothing about it.)Tous les matins, je me rendais à la New York Public Library. Ce que je sais d'ethnologie, c'est pendant ces années-là que je l'ai appris.
(Every morning I went to the New York Public Library. What I know of anthropology I learned during those years.)The publication of Tristes tropiques in 1955 is a defining moment in Lévi-Strauss's career, and a significant moment in the intellectual history of postwar France. Quite apart from its impact in anthropology – a number of French ethnologists cite Tristes tropiques as the initial inspiration of their choice of vocation – it drew favourable critical responses from across the intellectual spectrum, from Sartre to Blanchot. The book has since become a classic, and is still in print almost fifty years after its publication, both in French and in its numerous translated versions. The book was not originally Lévi-Strauss's idea. The initial impulse came from Jean Malaurie, the veteran explorer and ethnologist who had recently launched a series named Terre humaine, in which the first publication had been his own Les Derniers Rois de Thulé.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
