'An intellectual biography that briskly and brilliantly assesses the great, original, creative ideas and their origins in the context of Lévi-Strauss's life from the 1930s to the 1960s in Brazil, New York and Paris'

The Times Biographies of the Year

'Both a gratifyingly clear summary of a difficult body of work and a eulogy for a time "when the stream of consciousness of one mind could leave a deep cultural imprint"'

New Yorker

'Illuminating ... This book, with an admiring but not slavish appreciation of its subject ... appreciates and communicates the grandeur of its subject's accomplishments'

New York Times

'[Wilcken] lays out the life with clarity, efficiency, readability and occasionally dissent ... A superbly thrilling life'

Guardian