Mary Douglas - Social Anthropology (7 books)

MARY DOUGLAS (1921-2007) was an influential British anthropologist and cultural theorist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism, whose area of speciality was social anthropology. Douglas was considered a follower of Émile Durkheim and a proponent of structuralist analysis, with a strong interest in comparative religion and an anthropological reading of the Bible.

Her book PURITY AND DANGER (1966), an analysis of the concepts of ritual purity and impurity in different societies and times, is considered a key text in social anthropology. The Times Literary Supplement listed it as one of the hundred most influential non-fiction books published since 1945. In NATURAL SYMBOLS (1970), Douglas explores themes such as the social meaning of natural symbols and the image of the body in society. She also published on such subjects as risk analysis and the environment, consumption and welfare economics, and food and ritual, all increasingly cited outside anthropology circles.


Unless otherwise indicated, the following books are in PDF format:

* JACOB'S TEARS: The Priestly Work of Reconciliation (Oxford University Press, 2004)

* NATURAL SYMBOLS: Explorations in Cosmology, 2nd edition (Routledge, 1996)

* PURITY AND DANGER: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (Routledge, 1984)

* RISK AND BLAME: Essays in Cultural Theory (Routledge, 1992)

* RISK AND CULTURE: An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers [with Aaron Wildavsky] (University of California Press, 1982) -- EPUB

* THINKING IN CIRCLES: An Essay in Ring Composition (Yale University Press, 2007)

* THE WORLD OF GOODS: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption [with Baron Isherwood] (Routledge, 1996). With a new Introduction.