Last refreshed at 0600GMT Friday The best five books on everything | 30 July 2010

Purity and Danger

Mary Douglas
Image of Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (Routledge Classics)

Douglas says that in order to make sense of society, cultures like to group things. When objects fall outside those groups they are either reviled or revered. The great thing for me is that I could take her theory back to the ancient world and use it in my studies. It was so liberating.