Charles Letourneau

Charles Letourneau (1831 to 1902) was a nineteenth century French anthropologist, born in Auray and dying in Paris. He joined the Society of Anthropology of Paris in 1865 and served as its general secretary from 1887 until his death, succeeding Paul Broca in that post. He is known for a long series of works on the evolution of human institutions among the different races, among them La sociologie d'après l'ethnographie (1880), L'évolution de la morale (1887), L'évolution du mariage et de la famille (1888) and later volumes on war, slavery, education, religion and literature in the various human races, as well as La psychologie ethnique (1901). Friedrich Engels cited his work on marriage and the family in later editions of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, quoting Letourneau on the relation between intellectual development and the form of sexual life among mammals. The atlas holds him as a French theorist whose titles tie sociology to the comparative study of peoples.