Purity and Danger is acknowledged as a modern masterpiece of anthropology. It is widely cited in non-anthropological works and gave rise to a body of applicatio

Mary Douglas’s seminal work Purity and Danger (Routledge, 1966) continues to be indispensable reading for both students and scholars today. Marking the 50th a

Offering a new and controversial interpretation of Leviticus this book sets out an anthropological perspective on the Jewish purity laws.

Do institutions think? If so, how do they do it? Do they have minds of their own? If so, what thoughts occupy these suprapersonal minds? Mary Douglas delves int

First published in 1992, this volume follows on from the programme for studying risk and blame that was implied in Purity and Danger. The first half of the book