In this autobiographical reflection, the distinguished anthropologist Philippe Descola looks back on his intellectual career and examines both the central themes of his work and the key questions that have shaped anthropological debates over the past forty years.

A student of Lévi-Strauss, Descola conducted ethnographic research among the Achuar of the upper Amazon in the late 1970s, focusing on how native societies relate to their environment. In this book he sheds fresh light on the evolution of his thinking from structuralism to an anthropology beyond the human, on the critique of the modern separation between nature and society, and above all on the genesis and scope of his major work Beyond Nature and Culture. This synthesis of the ways in which humans view their relationships with non-humans proposes four schemas for the ‘composition of worlds’ (animism, naturalism, totemism, analogism) that characterize our ways of inhabiting the earth.

“Charbonnier’s questions have engendered exquisite insights into the essence of Descola’s anthropology. A very welcome translation reveals the prescience with which, long ago, this eminent thinker scaled up his concerns to address some of today’s most urgent problems.”
Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge

“What a privilege, to accompany this brilliant anthropologist as he develops and reflects on his meta-ontology against the background of the ethnographic vocation, the Amazonian forest, structuralism, and the distinctiveness of anthropology in France! An instant classic, this exceptionally lucid work will be indispensable for teaching.”
Michael Lambek, University of Toronto

Philippe Descola is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the Collège de France and Director of Studies at EHESS, Paris.