Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (first published 1966) is the best known book by the influential anthropologist and cultural theorist Mary Douglas

Mary Douglas

Dame Mary Douglas, DBE, FBA was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism....

. In 1991 the Times Literary Supplement listed it as one of the hundred most influential non-fiction books published since 1945. It has gone through numerous reprints and re-editions (1969, 1970, 1978, 1984, 1991, 2002). In 2003 a further edition was brought out as volume 2 in Mary Douglas: Collected Works (isbn 0415291054).

Reviews

• Edwin Ardener
  Edwin Ardener
  Edwin Ardener was a British social anthropologist and academic. He was also noted for his contributions to the study of history. Within anthropology, some of his most important contributions were to the study of gender, as in his 1975 work in which he described women as "muted" in social...
  
   in Man
  Man (journal)
  Man was a journal of anthropological research, published in London between 1901–1994 by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. For first sixty-three volumes from its inception in 1901 up to 1963 it was issued on a monthly basis, moving to bi-monthly issue for the...
  
  , New Series, 2:1 (1967), p. 139.
• Melford Spiro
  Melford Spiro
  Melford Elliot Spiro is an American cultural anthropologist specializing in psychological anthropology. He is known for his work on the Westermarck effect, and for his studies of the kibbutz. He has conducted fieldwork among the Ojibwa, on Ifaluk atoll in Micronesia, in Israel, and in Burma...
  
   in American Anthropologist
  American Anthropologist
  American Anthropologist is the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association . It is known for publishing a wide range of work in anthropology, including articles on cultural, biological and linguistic anthropology and archeology...
  
  , New Series, 70:2 (1968), pp. 391-393.
• William McCormack in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
  Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
  The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion is a peer-reviewed journal, published by Wiley-Blackwell in the United States of America under the auspices of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, dedicated to publishing scholarly articles in the social sciences, including psychology,...
  
  , 6:2 (1967), pp. 313-314.
• Joseph B. Tamney in Sociological Analysis, 28:1 (1967), pp. 56-57.
• Phillip R. Kunz in Review of Religious Research, 10:2 (1969), pp. 114-115.
• Albert James Bergesen, review essay in American Journal of Sociology
  American Journal of Sociology
  The American Journal of Sociology was established in 1895 by Albion Small and is the oldest academic journal of sociology in the United States. The journal is attached to the University of Chicago's sociology department and it is published bimonthly by The University of Chicago Press. Its...
  
  , 83:4 (1978), pp. 1012-1021 (also dealing with Douglas's later book, Natural Symbols
  Natural Symbols
  Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology is an influential book by the British cultural anthropologist Mary Douglas. Further editions were published in 1973, 1982, 1996, 2003...
  
  ).
• P. H. Gulliver in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
  School of Oriental and African Studies
  The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...
  
  30:2, Fiftieth Anniversary Volume (1967), pp. 462-464.

Sources

• Richard Fardon, Mary Douglas: An Intellectual Biography (London: Routledge, 1999), ch. 4.

External links

• 2002 edition on google books
• Leonore Davidoff, "Speaking Volumes: Purity and Danger", Times Higher Education Supplement 19 May 1995. Accessed 22 March 2010.