Mauss, Marcel (1872–1950)

Marcel Mauss was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and ethnologist. He studied at Bordeaux University as well as at the École Pratique des Hautes Études and the Sorbonne in Paris. From 1901 onward, Mauss taught History of the Religions of Uncivilized Peoples at the École. In 1925, he cofounded the Institut d’Éthnologie. Six years later, he received the chair in sociology at the Collège de France. Mauss was a nephew and student of sociologist Émile Durkheim, who deeply influenced his thinking. They collaborated on several research projects (e.g., Durkheim and Mauss 1963) and Mauss contributed extensively to Durkheim's journal L'Année Sociologique (1898–1913). Mauss served in the First World War (1914–1918). He was a socialist political activist for much of his life.

In The Gift, his most celebrated ...