Offers, on its surface, a simple theoretical argument, laid out in the titles of its mere two chapters: kinship is culture, not biology. But along the way to proving his point, the author engages an array of thinkers, from Aristotle to Emile Durkheim to Marilyn Strathern, as well as an array of ethnographic examples from around the globe.

"What is most striking about Sahlins's discussion is the evocative way in which he captures something immediately recognizable about kinship. Across cultures, eras, and social backgrounds, the sense that kin "participate intrinsically in each other's existence,' that they share 'a mutuality of being,' and are 'members of one another' is intuitively graspable-not as an analytic abstraction, as many definitions of kinship seem to be, but in a way that palpably makes sense of the whole range of human experience as described in the ethnographic record, and also our own." (Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory) "Sahlins catalogs brilliantly the varied ways in which people construct family ties completely apart from their genetic relationships.... This is cultural anthropology at its best." (Cosmos & Culture, National Public Radio)"