Gerald Mars

Gerald Mars (born 1933) is a British social anthropologist who works across disciplines to understand the nature and problems of modern industrial society.

His work draws on the grid-group theory of Mary Douglas, on his fieldwork in Canada, Britain, Israel, and the former Soviet republics, and on his own experience.

Born Gerald Margolis in Manchester, the eldest of four brothers in a Jewish family,[1] he grew up in Blackpool where, leaving school at 15, he worked at stalls on the Golden Mile and Pleasure Beach.

After National Service and varied employment he was admitted in 1959 under the mature students' state scholarship scheme to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where his bemused tutor was the classicist W. A.

Retiring from full-time teaching he became a professor at the schools of management and policy studies at Cranfield with part-time professorships at several other universities.