Robert Parkin's book gives a reading of each of these texts before going on to show their subsequent influence on anthropologists in particular. Hertz's activities as reviewer and phamphleteer are also covered. The introductory biographical chapter drawing on Hertz's surviving papers in the College de France, shows his own ambivalence towards his academic career and it also attempts to clarify the circumstances leading up to his apparently gratuitous death in the First World War. Two further chapters attempt to situate his work in the broader context of Durkheimian sociology.

Chapter 1 Life and Career; Chapter 2 The Durkheimian Background to Hertz's Work; Chapter 3 Hertz as Reviewer and Pamphleteer; Chapter 4 Right and Left; Chapter 5 Death and the Analysis of Ritual; Chapter 6 Sin and Expiation; Chapter 7 St Besse and the Analysis of Myth; Chapter 8 Conclusion;