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How French Moderns Think
The Lévy-Bruhl Family, From “Primitive Mentality” to Contemporary Pandemics
Brief Description
This book traces the contributions of the Lévy-Bruhl family to social and political thought and expertise in 20th-century France, shaping the anticipation of economic and health crises. How French Moderns Think tells the story of the French sociological tradition through four generations of the Lévy-Bruhl family:...
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Description
This book traces the contributions of the Lévy-Bruhl family to social and political thought and expertise in 20th-century France, shaping the anticipation of economic and health crises.
How French Moderns Think tells the story of the French sociological tradition through four generations of the Lévy-Bruhl family: Lucien, who founded the Institute of Ethnology at the University of Paris; his son Henri, who founded the Institute of Roman Law; his grandson Raymond, who took part in the creation of the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies; and his great-grandson Daniel, a vaccine specialist at the Institute of Public Health.
This family history casts a new light on the philosophical debates about “primitive mentality” and the “savage mind.” By drawing on the expert knowledge inherent in this family genealogy, the articulation between the logical and the “pre-logical” is not a cognitive question but rather a problem of anticipating unpredictable events.
By relating Lévy-Bruhl’s engagements from the Dreyfus Affair to the Minister of Armaments during the First World War, Keck narrates the confrontation of the socialist ideal of justice and truth with the French colonial experience and its transformations in global technologies preparing for pandemics.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781914363023
Publisher: HAU
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 17 April 2024
Country: United States
Imprint: HAU
Illustration: 8 halftones
Contributors:
- Foreword by Michael M. J. Fischer
Audience: Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 20.0mm
Width: 152.0mm
Height: 229.0mm
Weight: 454g
Pages: 215
About the Author
Frédéric Keck is a senior researcher at CNRS, author of Avian Reservoirs: Virus Hunters and Birdwatchers in Chinese Sentinel Posts as well as several books in French, and coeditor of The Anthropology of Epidemics.
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