André Leroi-Gourhan on Technology, Evolution, and Social Life: A Selection of Texts and Writings from the 1930s to the 1970s (Bard Graduate Center - Cultural Histories of the Material World)

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.