The late anthropologist Valerio Valeri (1944–98) was best known for his substantial writings on societies of Polynesia and eastern Indonesia. This volume, however, presents a lesser-known side of Valeri’s genius through a dazzlingly erudite set of comparative essays on core topics in the history of anthropological theory. Offering masterly discussions of anthropological thought about ritual, fetishism, cosmogonic myth, belief, caste, kingship, mourning, play, feasting, ceremony, and cultural relativism, Classic Concepts in Anthropology, will be an eye-opening, essential resource for students and researchers not only in anthropology but throughout the humanities.

Valerio Valeri (1944–98) was an Italian anthropologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books, including Kingship and Sacrifice: Ritual and Society in Ancient Hawaii, published by the University of Chicago Press. Rupert Stasch is a lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge and the author of Society of Others: Kinship and Mourning in a West Papuan Place. Giovanni da Col is a research fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oslo and the founder of HAU Books and HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory.