Golden Bough

Once upon a time, anthropology had something to offer philosophy. It was a time when Continential thinkers drew on anthropology's theoretical terms—mana, taboo, potlatch—in order to reflect on the limits of human belief and imagination. Among these philosophic dialogues with anthropology, we find Ludwig Wittgenstein's Remarks on Sir James Frazer's magnum opus, The Golden Bough. Now, Hau Books brings you the first translation by an anthropology—Stephan Palmié—of this masterpiece. Wittgenstein's remarks on ritual, magic, religion, belief, ceremony, and Frazer's own logical presuppositions are as lucid and thought-provoking now as they were over half-a-century ago. Anthropologists find themselves repeating many of Wittgenstein's same questions and confronting similar doubts today: Is metaphysics a kind of magic? What do we call “ritual”? Are humans simply “ceremonial animals”? This book is not only a fresh translation, but a fresh set of engagements with Wittgenstein's ideas from some of the world's most brilliant anthropologists. Contributors include: David Graeber, Veena Das, Michael Lambek, Heonik Kwon, Carlo Severi, Michael Taussig, Wendy James, Giovanni da Col, and Michael Puett. Here is a unique and well-overdue discussion of the mythologies in our language. Taking interdisciplinarity seriously, this volume returns to the ethnographic imagination that made great thinkers like Sigmund Freud, Jean-Paul Sartre, and indeed Ludwig Wittgenstein take heed—and returns the favor to the philosophical tradition that found wonder and pause for thought in the anthropological canon.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION • WINNER OF THE WRITERS’ TRUST NON-FICTION PRIZE “Absolutely spellbinding.” —The New York Times The environmental true-crime story of a glorious natural wonder, the man who destroyed it, and the fascinating, troubling context in which this act took place. FEATURING A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR On a winter night in 1997, a British Columbia timber scout named Grant Hadwin committed an act of shocking violence in the mythic Queen Charlotte Islands. His victim was legendary: a unique 300-year-old Sitka spruce tree, fifty metres tall and covered with luminous golden needles. In a bizarre environmental protest, Hadwin attacked the tree with a chainsaw. Two days later, it fell, horrifying an entire community. Not only was the golden spruce a scientific marvel and a tourist attraction, it was sacred to the Haida people and beloved by local loggers. Shortly after confessing to the crime, Hadwin disappeared under suspicious circumstances and is missing to this day. As John Vaillant deftly braids together the strands of this thrilling mystery, he brings to life the ancient beauty of the coastal wilderness, the historical collision of Europeans and the Haida, and the harrowing world of logging—the most dangerous land-based job in North America.

Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941) is rightly regarded as one of the founders of modern anthropology. This volume is the author's own abridgement of his great work, and was first published in 1922. It offers the thesis that man progresses from magic through religious belief to scientific thought.

The Golden Bough is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer. The book documents and details the similarities among magical and religious beliefs around the globe. Frazer attempted to define the shared elements of religious belief and scientific thought, discussing fertility rites, human sacrifice, the dying god, the scapegoat, and many other symbols and practices whose influences had extended into 20th-century culture. His thesis is that old religions were fertility cults that revolved around the worship and periodic sacrifice of a sacred king. Frazer proposed that mankind progresses from magic through religious belief to scientific thought. The influence of The Golden Bough on contemporary European literature and thought is substantial.

Sir James George Frazer originally set out to discover the origins of one ancient custom in Classical Rome - the plucking of the Golden Bough from a tree in the sacred grove of Diana, and the murderous succession of the priesthood there - and was led by his invetigations into a twenty-five year study of primitive customs, superstitions, magic and myth throughout the world. The monumental thirteen-volume work which resulted has been a rich source of anthropological material and a literary masterpiece for more than half a century. Both the wealth of his illustrative material and the broad sweep of his argument can be appreciated in this very readable single volume.