Brian Morris

The life and thought of Bakunin has contemporary relevance, particularly for his definitions of freedom. This book confirms that his holistic thinking was dominated by a desire to achieve a unity of theory and practice. "Everything about him is colossalhe is full of a primitive exuberance and strength."--Richard Wagner

This is a comprehensive study of the varying conceptions of the human subject in the Western intellectual tradition. Although informed by an anthropological perspective, the author draws on material from all the major intellectual disciplines that have contributed to this tradition and offers biographical and theoretical vignettes of all the major Western scholars. By scrutinizing the classical texts of the Western tradition, he succeeds in delineating the differing conceptions of the human individual which emerge from these writings, and gives a guide to the most important ideas in Western cultural traditions.

In this important, scholarly and wide-ranging text, Brian Morris provides a lucid outline of the nature of the explanations of religious phenomena offered by such great thinkers as Hegel, Marx, and Weber. In doing so he also unravels the many theoretical strategies in the study of religion that have been developed and explored by later anthropologists. Besides discussing the classical authors and the debates surrounding their work, Morris presents perceptive accounts of more contemporary scholars such as Jung, Malinowski, Levi-Strauss, Geertz, and Godelier. Written from the standpoint of critical sympathy, and free of jargon, this book is an invaluable guide to the writings on religion of all the major figures in anthropology.

The first ethnographic study of a community with structured trading relationships, the nomadic forest community of the Hill Pandarm.