He is famous for his fieldwork on the shift of agriculturalists in Madagascar, Japan and other parts of the world, and has also contributed important neo-Marxian work on power, history, kinship, and ritual.

She and her son moved to England to join Kennedy, and Bloch became a British citizen, attending The Perse School in Cambridge.

At present, he is emeritus professor at the LSE and an associate member of the Institut Jean Nicod of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

He has supervised many younger anthropologists, several of whom hold prestigious posts in the UK, US, Australia, Japan, France, Canada, the Netherlands, China, Argentina, Madagascar and Malaysia.

One field site has been among the peasants of central Imerina; and the other in a remote forest inhabited by a group of people called Zafimaniry.