"We tend to associate "primitivism" with the nostalgic idealization of origins, often aimed at parts of the world that are (problematically) viewed as "closer" to that idealized past than modern post-industrial society. "Primitivist" impulses still existin popular culture, whether in "paleo" diets or returns to foraging, and they can also be seen in intellectual and political circles in debates around the possibility of "degrowth." In this book, historian Ryan Allen examines primitivism anew through four fascinating figures: Georges Bataille, Henri Lefebvre, Mircea Eliade, and Georges Devereux. In the postwar period, Allen shows, the French social sciences were obsessed with the primitive and archaic from anthropological, philosophical, psychiatric, or religious angles. These thinkers, in different ways, sought past alternatives to midcentury hyper-modernization and capitalist excess. They put forth trenchant critiques of contemporary society, and as Allen argues, they sought in the archaic past a way to imagine a more sustainable future. Allen seeks to rehabilitate these thinkers, showing how their critique of growth and consumerism was nourished by an engagement with primitive cultures as potential sources of cultural and ecological wisdom. As we faceplanetary disaster, Allen suggests, there is still something to learn from these iconoclastic approaches"-- Examines how four intellectuals with ties to the French social sciences articulated a new primitivist sensibility between 1945 and 1975. We tend to associate primitivism with the nostalgic idealization of origins, often aimed at parts of the world that are viewed as closer to that idealized past than modern post-industrial society. Primitivist impulses still exist in popular culture, whether in paleo diets or returns to foraging, and they can also be seen in intellectual and political circles in debates around the possibility of degrowth. In this book, historian Ryan L. Allen examines primitivism anew through four fascinating figures: Georges Bataille, Henri Lefebvre, Georges Devereux, and Mircea Eliade. In the postwar period, Allen shows, the French social sciences reappraised the primitive and archaic from anthropological, sociological, psychiatric, and religious angles. These four thinkers sought past alternatives to midcentury hypermodernization and capitalist excess. They put forth trenchant critiques of contemporary society and sought in the archaic past a way to imagine a more sustainable future. Adventures in the Archaic rehabilitates these thinkers, showing how their critique of growth and consumerism was nourished by an engagement with primitive cultures as potential sources of cultural and ecological wisdom. As we confront planetary crisis, Allen suggests, there is still much we can learn from these iconoclastic approaches. Autorid: Ryan L. Allen