Edmund Leach: An Anthropological Life

Abstract

1. Edmund Leach (1910-1989): Achievements 2. Childhood and youth 3. Apprenticeship and the Second World War 4. The anthropologist at work: teacher and theorist 5. The Political Systems of Highland Burma 6. The Frontiers of Burma 7. Pul Eliya: the challenge to the descent group theory 8. Hydraulic Society in Ceylon: contesting Wittfogel's thesis and Sri Lankan mytho-history 9. The engagement with structuralism 10. The comparativist stance: us and them 11. The Structural Analysis of Biblical Narratives (with illustrations) 12. Anthropology of art and architecture (with illustrations) 13. Individuals, social persons and masquerade 14. Leach and Levi Strauss: similarities and differences 15. A Runaway World? 16. British anthropology and colonialism: challenge and response 17. Retrospective assessment and rethinking anthropology 18. The work of sustaining institutions 19. Retirement, retrospection and final illness Bibliography.