Claude Levi-Strauss is one of the most famous, respected and important social anthropologists of all time. He was born on November 28, 1908 in Brussels, both of his parets were French. During his childhood, the family lived mostly in Paris.After finishing high school Lévi-Strauss continued his studies in Law School in Paris. However, he soon gave up on law and focused on philosophy.After graduating from philosophy in 1931, he taught at secondary school until 1935. After having taught for a while he went to Brazil for an extended period of time. In Brazil he became a visiting professor of sociology at the Sao Paulo University, while his wife Dina was a visiting professor of ethnology. Besides teaching sociology, Levi-Strauss also made several trips to the Amazon jungle where he lived and studied the native tribes.
At teh beging of the Second World War, Levi-Strauss returned to France. After France’s capitulation in 1941, he left the country. He went to Martinique from where he emigrated to New York City. There, he taught at the New School for Social Research and at the Ecole Libre des Hautes Etudes . Levi-Strauss returned to Paris in 1948 to receive doctorate from the Sorbonne. One year later, he published his first notable work – The Elementary Structures of Kinship that soon became one of the most important works in anthropology.
Levi-Strauss rose to international fame after he published Tristes Tropiques (A World on the Wane) in 1961. It containes his trips and life with