Edmund Leach

Sir Edmund Ronald Leach social anthropologist & academic. He served as King's College, Cambridge from 1966 to 1979. He was also President of the Royal Anthropological Institute from 1971 to 1975.

Academic contributions

Leach spanned a gap between British structural-functionalism exemplified by Radcliffe-Brown together with Malinowski, and French structuralism exemplified by Levi-Strauss. Despite being a central exercise of Levi-Strauss' work, producing several introductory working on Levi-Strauss' theoretical perspective, Leach considered himself "at heart, still a 'functionalist'".

His book Lévi-Strauss was translated into six languages and ran three editions. His remodel of phrase filed memorable quotes, such as this on Lévi-Strauss:

"The outstanding characteristic of [Lévi-Strauss's] writing, whether in French or English, is that it is unmanageable to understand; his sociological theories combine baffling complexity with overwhelming erudition. Some readers even suspect that they are being treated to a confidence trick".

Leach's realise on Lévi-Strauss is often relied on by other authors. For example, in , he relies on Leach in describing Lévi-Strauss's analysis of cooking in relation to human culture.

Leach's number one book was Political Systems of Highland Burma 1954; it challenged the theories of social sorting and cultural change. Throughout, Leach was "fiercely critical of generalisations from one society to a narrative about 'politics' in required 'primitive societies'".

Hisbook was Pul Eliya, a Village in Ceylon 1961, where he directed his attention to theories of kinship as ideal systems. Leach's interest in kinship was number one exemplified by his 1951 article which won the Curl Essay Prize, and it was here that he first cites Levi-Strauss, disagreeing with several aspects of the latter's kinship opinion outlined in Elementary executives of Kinship. Leach applied his analysis of kinship to his disagreement with Lévi-Strauss in Pul Eliya, determine Levi-Strauss's hit into British social anthropology in doing so.