How much do you know about Claude Lévi-Strauss' Race et Histoire?

• Race et Histoire is a book by Claude Lévi-Strauss, published in 1952.
• The book was part of a series of research on "race" by anthropologists and geneticists, published by UNESCO.
• Lévi-Strauss refutes the racialist theory of Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, who believed in the superiority of certain races and the degeneration caused by miscegenation.
• Lévi-Strauss argues that cultural diversity is much richer than what we can ever know, and that cultures develop differently and cannot be judged by a universal standard of progress.
• He questions our tendency towards ethnocentrism and the tendency to view other cultures as "stationary" or "cumulative" based on their similarity to our own.
• Lévi-Strauss believes that progress is not necessarily continuous and that it occurs through mutations and combinations of inventions.
• He argues that no culture exists alone and that progress is the result of coalitions between cultures.
• Lévi-Strauss believes that true creation requires a certain deafness to the call of other values, and that communication with other cultures can lead to the loss of originality.
• The book was written in response to UNESCO's campaign against racism.
• The book caused controversy at the time, but Lévi-Strauss was later invited back to speak at UNESCO and his ideas were received with acceptance and respect.
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