The French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss celebrates his 100th birthday today in Paris. An icon of 20th-century French intellectual life, he changed the world’s perception of so-called “primitive” tribes in Asia, Africa and America and introduced “structural anthropology” to the language. His seminal books La Pensée Sauvage and Mythologiques set loose a torrent of controversy among intellectuals. His works have this year been collected in the respected Pléiade library, a rare honour for a living author. Claude Lévi-Strauss is 100 today. RGT