• ISBN13: 9780415253963
• Binding: Paperback
• Subject: Religion and Philosophy
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
• Publisher Imprint: Routledge Classics
• Publication Date: June 6, 2012
• Pages: 194
• Original Price: INR 395.0
• Language: English
• Edition: 5
• Item Weight: 200 grams
• BISAC Subject(s): Anthropology / General

First written by Marcel Mauss and Henri Humbert in 1902, A General Theory of Magic gained a wide new readership when republished by Mauss in 1950. As a study of magic in 'primitive' societies and its survival today in our thoughts and social actions, it represents what Claude Lévi-Strauss called, in an introduction to that edition, the astonishing modernity of the mind of one of the century's greatest thinkers. The book offers a fascinating snapshot of magic throughout various cultures as well as deep sociological and religious insights still very much relevant today. At a period when art, magic and science appear to be crossing paths once again, A General Theory of Magic presents itself as a classic for our times.

Marcel Mauss (1872 - 1950) French anthropologist and sociologist, author of The Gift, and, with Emile Durkheim, Primitive Classification.