Will I love Tristes Tropiques?

A cornerstone of ethnography. Lévi-Strauss writes with the erudition and elegance of a French grand école mind, but without the pretentiousness or starry-eyed exoticism that usually poisons travel writing. Parts of it echo Céline’s Voyage; same disillusion, different continents.

This remarkable book, by one of the major anthropologists of the 20th century, intertwines two enterprises; it is both a fascinating account of his ethnographic work in Brazil in the 1930s and a penetrating reflection on what it’s like for a Parisian educated scholar to understand and convey what he later termed “the Savage Mind.”

Artfully written, this book exemplifies the best of social science and literary artistry—and serves as a model for all who want to write evocatively about their calling.

A classic work of philosophical anthropology containing the record of one anthropologist’s search for what it means to be human. Part personal memoir, part vivid travelogue, part scientific milestone, part critique of civilization, and all tour de force, the work defies easy categorization. Another rich playground for the intellect.

OK, this is a classic. But it is not only a compelling story about the author’s experiences doing fieldwork in Brazil. It is also an introduction to structural anthropology (the field Lévi-Stauss created ), a great work of French prose (the Weightmans’ is the preferable translation), and a meditation on the future of the human race (not good).