剋洛德·列維-斯特勞斯，法蘭西學院榮譽退休教授，法蘭西科學院院士，國際著名人類學傢，法國結構主義人文學術思潮的主要創始人，以及當初五位“結構主義大師”中今日唯一健在者。

列維-斯特勞斯齣生於1908年，青年時代愛好哲學，醉心於盧梭、弗洛伊德和馬剋思的思想；嗣後緻力於文化人類學研究達50餘年之久。20世紀30年代他曾在巴西考察當地土著社會多年。40年代旅美期間鑽研英美人類學與結構語言學，陸續發錶瞭大量研究成果。自1959年起任法蘭西學院教授迄今。

"Every word, like a sacred object, has its place. No "precis" is possible. This extraordinary book must be read."--Edmund Carpenter, "New York Times Book Review "

"No outline is possible; I can only say that reading this book is a most exciting intellectual exercise in which dialectic, wit, and imagination combine to stimulate and provoke at every page."--Edmund Leach, "Man "

"Levi-Strauss's books are tough: very scholarly, very dense, very rapid in argument. But once you have mastered him, human history can never be the same, nor indeed can one's view of contemporary society. And his latest book, "The Savage Mind," is his most comprehensive and certainly his most profound. Everyone interested in the history of ideas "must" read it; everyone interested in human institutions "should "read it."--J. H. Plumb, "Saturday Review"

"A constantly stimulating, informative and suggestive intellectual challenge."--Geoffrey Gorer, "The Observer," London