The Savage Mind

A very dense, very intricate, very in-depth discussion and thesis on the real structure of totemic, “primitive” thought and organization of such culture's worldviews. There are a lot of concepts and structures here that Lévi-Strauss employs with a wide range of application in other areas that have since come into use by various other scholars and academics. This in of itself proves that “savage thought” is actually quite systematic, dialectical, and advanced in important ways, although Lévi-Strauss himself demonstrates this continually throughout the book.

This took me a long time to read. I put it down for a while after finishing with the first three chapters. But then, I persevered, and it was quite rewarding actually all the way through (especially the last two chapters), even though it was often quite an exercise to my brain in understanding what he wrote. This book is very important not only because of its perennial relevance to post-structuralist theorists, but on its own it stands as a major work of 20th century philosophical anthropology.