Dr. med. dent. Karl Mauss (May 17, 1898 – February 9, 1959) was one of the most distinguished tank commanders of the Wehrmacht during World War II. He was a lieutenant general and commander of the 7th Panzer Division, and one of only 27 ever to receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds (German: Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub, Schwertern und Brillanten). The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grade the Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership.

Karl Mauss was born in the town of Ploen in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. In 1914, at only sixteen years of age he volunteered to serve during World War I. Thanks to his obstinacy and the support of his father, he was accepted and joined Jägerregiment 162, serving during the war at Arras, La Bassee, Flanders, Somme and Isonzo. In 1915, barely seventeen as the youngest man in the division, he was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd class for distinguishing himself as the best scout in the region during the Battle of the Somme. The year after, he was promoted to 2nd lieutenant (becoming one of the youngest commissioned officers of the entire army) and, a short time later after the transfer of his division to the East into the Carpathians, received the Iron Cross, 1st class.

Mauss is a surname that may refer to the following people:

Marcel Mauss (10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950; pronounced /mo:s/) was a French sociologist. The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss' academic work traversed the boundaries between sociology and anthropology. Today, he is perhaps better recognised for his influence on the latter discipline; particularly with respect to his analyses of topics such as magic, sacrifice and gift exchange in different cultures around the world. Mauss had a significant influence upon the founder of structural anthropology, Claude Lévi-Strauss. His most famous book is The Gift (1923).

Mauss was born in Épinal, Vosges to a Jewish family, and studied philosophy at Bordeaux, where his uncle Émile Durkheim was teaching at the time, and aggregated in 1893. Instead of taking the usual route of teaching at a lycée, however, Mauss moved to Paris and took up the study of comparative religion and the Sanskrit language. His first publication in 1896 marked the beginning of a prolific career that would produce several landmarks in the sociological literature.

Karl Paul Polanyi (Polányi Károly Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈpolaːɳi ˈkaːɾoj]; born October 25, 1886, Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire – April 23, 1964, Pickering, Ontario) was a Hungarian philosopher, political economist and economic historian known for his opposition to traditional economic thought and his book, The Great Transformation. Polanyi is remembered today as the originator of substantivism, a cultural approach to economics, which emphasized the way economies are embedded in society and culture. This view ran counter to mainstream economics but was popular in anthropology, economic history, economic sociology and political science.

Polanyi's approach to the ancient economies has been applied to a variety of cases, such as Pre-Columbian America and ancient Mesopotamia, although its utility to the study of ancient societies in general has been questioned. Polanyi's The Great Transformation became a model for historical sociology. His theories eventually became the foundation for the economic democracy movement. His daughter Kari Polanyi-Levitt is Emerita Professor of Economics at McGill University, Montreal.

Allain Caillé (born 1944, Paris) is a French sociologist and economist. He is Professor of sociology at the University of Paris X Nanterre. He is a founding member of the Anti-Utilitarian Movement in the Social Sciences (MAUSS) and editor of the movement's monthly journal "Revue du Mauss".

Caillé's many books have been translated into many languages among them English, Arabic, Italian, Spanish, Romanian and Portuguese.