Books by Louis Dumont

Frontmatter -- Table des matières -- Préface -- PREMIÈRE PARTIE La parenté vue à partir de RadclifFe-Brown -- A. Qu'est-ce que la parenté ? -- B. Qu'entendre par « système de parenté » ? -- C. Relations de personne à personne et « principes structuraux » -- DEUXIÈME PARTIE La théorie des groupes d'unifiliation -- D. Avant Les Nuer -- E. Evans-Pritchard : Les Nuer -- F. Après Les Nuer -- TROISIÈME PARTIE La théorie de l'alliance de mariage -- G. Lévi-Strauss : Les Structures élémentaires -- H. Après Les Structures élémentaires -- BIBLIOGRAPHIE DE BASE -- Backmatter

This work examines the different national forms of the modern ideology of economic individualism. By means of a detailed comparison of France and Germany, it seeks to demonstrate that the French and German notions of individualism are far from equivalent.

Louis Dumont's Essays on Individualism is an ambitious attempt to place the modern ideology of individualism in a broad anthropological perspective. The result of twenty years of scholarship and inquiry, the interrelated essays gathered here not only trace the genesis and growth of individualism as the dominant force in Western philosophy, but also analyze the differences between this modern system of thought and those of other, nonmodern cultures. The collection represents an important contribution to Western society's understanding of itself and its place in the world.

This edition includes a lengthy new Preface in which Dumont reviews the academic discussion inspired by Homo Hierarchicus and answers his critics.