André Leroi-Gourhan on Technology: A Selection of Writings from the 1930s to the 1960s
by André Leroi-Gourhan
edited by Nathan Schlanger
translated by Nils F. Schott
Bard Graduate Center, 2023
Cloth: 978-1-941792-14-8 | eISBN: 978-1-941792-15-5
Library of Congress Classification GN406.L4713 2025
Dewey Decimal Classification 303.483
ABOUT THIS BOOK
A selection of Leroi-Gourhan’s most important texts—many translated into English for the first time.
André Leroi-Gourhan is undoubtedly one of the most acclaimed figures of twentieth-century anthropology and archaeology. In France, his intellectual importance rivals that of the Claude Lévi-Strauss, yet Leroi-Gourhan’s major contributions are almost entirely unknown in the Anglophone world. This collection seeks to change that. This selection highlights some of his chief influences, such as elaborating a theory of technology, which argues that material culture focuses on the object in use and how use is a dynamic feature that has specific consequences for human evolution and human society. With serious ramifications for our understanding of material culture, putting Leroi-Gourhan’s thinking about technology into English will have an immediate and transformative impact on material culture studies.
André Leroi-Gourhan is undoubtedly one of the most acclaimed figures of twentieth-century anthropology and archaeology. In France, his intellectual importance rivals that of the Claude Lévi-Strauss, yet Leroi-Gourhan’s major contributions are almost entirely unknown in the Anglophone world. This collection seeks to change that. This selection highlights some of his chief influences, such as elaborating a theory of technology, which argues that material culture focuses on the object in use and how use is a dynamic feature that has specific consequences for human evolution and human society. With serious ramifications for our understanding of material culture, putting Leroi-Gourhan’s thinking about technology into English will have an immediate and transformative impact on material culture studies.
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