The French social anthropologist Claude Gustave Lévi-Strauss (born 1908) became a leading scholar in the structural approach to social anthropology.

Claude Lévi-Strauss was born on November 28, 1908, in Brussels, Belgium, of a cultured Jewish family. He grew up in France, attended a lycée in Paris, and studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, University of Paris. After holding several provincial teaching posts, he became interested in anthropology and accepted an appointment as professor of sociology at São Paulo University, Brazil (1935-1939), which enabled him to do field research among Brazil's Indian tribes.

Lévi-Strauss returned to wartime France and served in the army (1939-1941). He taught in New York City at the New School for Social Research and at the École Libre des Hautes Études (1942-1945). He was also cultural attaché in the French embassy (1946-1947).

Back in France, L...