Introduction to structuralism

The first authoritative collection in any language to display the full range of possible applications -- in linguistics, psychology, anthropology, sociology and literature -- of a revolutionary new analytical technique which has dominated French intellectual life in recent years. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Edmund Leach, Ferdinand de Saussure, and others among the contributors. Postulating that all forms of human behaviour may be studied as codes, the structuralists apply their methods to phenomena as diverse as primitive marriage systems, fashions, ideologies and poetry. [Back cover].