Douglas, Mary (1921–2007)

Mary Douglas, one of the most celebrated social anthropologists of her time, was born in 1921 and died in 2007. She was the author of more than a dozen books. Her first book, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Pollution and Taboo, published in 1966, established her reputation. Among her other books are Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (1970), Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology (1975), The World of Goods: An Anthropological Theory of Consumption (1979), written with Baron Isherwood, and Risk and Culture (1980), written with political scientist Aaron Wildavsky.

She received her PhD in anthropology from Oxford University, where she was a student of the distinguished anthropologist E. E. Evans-Prichard. Douglas taught at the University of London from 1952 to 1978, was a resident scholar ...