Christopher Henry Dawson was a British independent scholar, who wrote many books on cultural history and Christendom.
Born in Italy, Mary Douglas was educated at Oxford University and began her career as a civil servant in 1943. Her first field research was carried out in what was then the Belgian Congo and she taught at Oxford and the University of London before moving to the United States in 1977. Purity and Danger (1966) is an essay about the logic of pollution beliefs, suggesting that ideas about dirt and disorder outline and reinforce particular social orders. Her other essays exploring the implicit meanings of cultural symbols follow a similar Durkheimian format. Her recent interests have turned to analysis of risk behavior and cross-cultural attitudes about food and alcohol.
Christina Scott has worked in publishing and journalism. She is co-editor with James Oh#39;ver of an important posthumous collection of Christopher Dawson#39;s work published as Religion and World History.