Sociology and anthropology Books

Originally published in 1964 this volume collects together 25 years' worth of journal articles from the UK and USA. It brings together detailed descriptions and analyses of various aspects of the Yakö peoples of the Cross River area of Eastern Nigeria...

Originally published in 1971 this book argues that certain aspects of traditional African social systems have been misunderstood because of a failure to appreciate what is implied by important differences between the technologies of the major traditional...

Originally published in 1967 (second edition) presents an account of the life and social organisation of the Lo Wiili of the Haute Volta and Ghana. Chapters on the geographic and ethnographic background and economic system are followed by a detailed...

Consider the vast array of things around you, from the building you are in, the lights illuminating the interior, the computational devices mediating your life, the music in the background, even the crockery, furniture and glassware you are in the...

Originally published in 1945, this book analyses Tale social structure at the level of corporate group organization. Tale culture is discussed primarily as the content of social relations and not in its own right. Customs, beliefs, conventional usages,...

Originally published in 1972 this study analyses the process of economic growth and social change in the riparian communities of the Lower Volta River in Ghana, which came about in large part due to the construction of the Volta dam in 1963. With its...

Originally published in 1962, this study discusses the changes in the life of the Ovimbundu from the time of their caravan trade in slaves, rubber, and ivory down to the more recent period when the organization of their chiefdoms was influenced by the...

Originally published in 1943 this book discusses the life and culture of the Lovedu, a Bantu tribe in South Africa. As well as discussing the Rain-Queen, much of the book is devoted to the royal institutions; the network of links woven by kinship,...

Originally published in 1967 this volume presents studies of 10 West African kingdoms which have played an important part in the economic, political and cultural life of the region. Ranging geographically from the kingdom of Benin in southern Nigeria to...

Originally published in 1947 and reprinted with a new preface in 1961, this book is based on field studies and gives an account of the social organization of the Swazi, wiith special reference to the aristocratic structure of their society and the way in...

Originally published in 1954 this book was originally designed for administrators but has become a key title for anthropologists. It includes a summary account of the history and social organisation of the Nuer and provides a descriptive analysis of...

Originally published in 1950 and updated in 1968, this book discusses the functions and status of native chiefs in what were the French colonies in West Africa. It also examines the relation of the French legal code to native law and custom and the...

This book offers a variety of theoretical perspectives on the study of religion that bridge the gap between mainstream concerns of sociologists and the sociology of religion. Following an assessment of the current state of the field, the authors develop...

The label 'Suicide Cults' has been applied to a wide variety of different alternative religions, from Jonestown to the Solar Temple to Heaven's Gate. Additionally, observers have asked if such group suicides are in any way comparable to Islamist suicide...

Demography has always mattered in conflict, but with conflict increasingly of an inter-ethnic nature, with sharper demographic differences between ethnic groups and with the spread of democracy, numbers count in conflict now more than ever. This book...

Rooted in multimodal conversation analysis and based on video recordings of naturally occurring social interactions, this book presents a novel analytical perspective for the study of touch. The authors focus on how different forms of touch are...

Originally published in 1967, this book is a study of witchcraft and sorcery among the Shona, Ndebele and Kalanga peoples of Zimbabwe. It analyses in their social context verbatim evidence and confessions from a comprehensive series of judicial records...

Widowhood in an American City focuses on the roles and lifestyles of urban American widows fifty years of age or older

The great critic Peter Viereck, in a volume that both reproduces an earlier effort and presents an entirely new work on the intersection of history and literature, offers a biting critique of the American desire for normalcy that leads to a culture of...

In this age of large cities, mass culture, and ever more massive events, people must struggle against an overwhelming crowd of their own creations to maintain human integrity

The latest volume of Culture and Civilization gathers contemporary exponents of critical theory, specifically those based in the Frankfurt School of social thinking. Collectively, this volume demonstrates the continuing intellectual viability of critical...

Humor, wit, and laughter surround each person. From everyday quips to the carefully contrived comedy of literature, newspapers, and television we experience humor in many forms, yet the impetus for our laughter is far from innocuous

Robert G. Gregory challenges the apparent assumption that non-Western peoples lack a significant indigenous philanthropic culture

The changing economic and demographic patterns of the United States have many measurements; few of them, however, are more comprehensive than the new circulation realities of the press

As part of its Education Amendments, the United States Congress passed Title IX in 1972 to ensure that no person should be discriminated against in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance

Today we face the painful reality of the prevalence of chronic, rather than acute, diseases

The Report on Smoking and Health published by the Royal College of Physicians in England in 1965 warned of a connection between lung -cancer and smoking

This book, originally published as The Old East Side, is a collection of literature and documents ranging from the autobiography of the sculptor Jacob Epstein and the novels of Abraham Cahan to the reporting of William Dean Howells and the fictional...

"One of our most original social thinkers," according to the New York Times, Robert Nisbet offers a new approach to sociology

Our encounters with the physical world are filled with miraculous puzzles-wind appears from somewhere, heavy objects (like oil tankers) float on oceans, yet smaller objects go to the bottom of our water-filled buckets. As adults, instead of confronting a...

In this remarkable study, Robert R. Faulkner shows that the Hollywood film industry, like most work communities, is dominated by a highly productive and visible elite who exercise major influence on the control of available resources, career chances, and...

Humor at its best is a somewhat fluid and transitory element, but most books about it are illustrated with hardened old jokes from the comic papers, or classic witticisms jerked out of their context

Doctors and Rules is a unique and immensely scholarly book. It draws on material which has informed our civilization, including many of the social sciences-history, sociology, and psychology, as well as law. The author accesses the current importance of...

Essays in Our Changing Order is the ninth volume in the collected works of America's pre-eminent social scientist

For years Richard Hoggart has observed the oddity of a common speech habit: the fondness for employing ready-made sayings and phrasings whenever we open our mouths, a disinclination to form our own sentences "from scratch," unless that becomes...

This book examines key themes and concepts pertaining to religious and sexual identities and expressions, mapping theoretical, methodological, and empirical dimensions. It explores the ways in which debates around sexuality and religion have been framed,...

Originally published in 1945, this book was written at a time when an increasing European influence was affecting customary law in what was Tanganyika and this volume records different aspects of customary law such as inheritance, matrimony, divorce,...

Utilizing each chapter to present core topical and timely examples, Pop Culture Freaks highlights the tension between inclusion and individuality that lies beneath mass media and commercial culture, using this tension as a point of entry to an...

Originally published in 1953, this book records the Customary Law of the Sukuma tribe and discusses the differences in law whcih grew up in the various local federations, with the aim of unifying Customary Law for both the Tanzanians and European...

Originally published in 1949, this book discusses Umbundu social structure and education, with particular reference to how both of these adapted as Angola's contact with Western influences increased in the first half of the twentieth century. Using...

Originally published in 1931, this book collects tales told to the author by agricultural labourers and hunters in what was Togoland in the 1920s. A rare and valuable resource of oral history, the book also contains the history of the Dagomba from...

New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman declared the modern age in which we live as the 'age of distraction' in 2006. The basis of his argument was that technology has changed the ways in which our minds function and our capacity to dedicate ourselves...

Originally published in 1935, when the province of Iringa in what is now Tanzania was still under British administrative control, this book is inevitably a product of its time, but nonetheless it represents an important project in collaboration between...

Since publication in 1957 the importance of Bohannan's study of judicial institutions and procedures among the Tiv has been widely recognized. It has contributed widely to the continuing discussion concerning the objectives and methods to be followed in...

Since publication in 1957 the importance of Bohannan's study of judicial institutions and procedures among the Tiv has been widely recognized. It has contributed widely to the continuing discussion concerning the objectives and methods to be followed in...

Originally published in 1959 this volume studies the ritual office of the Mugwe which was of great social significance among the Meru of the Central Province of Kenya and analyses the social changes and decline of the Mugwe which came about in the second...

Originally published in 1951, this book provides an account of the traditional status and functions of the Asanti chief. The effects of British administration on the powers of the chief and his council are described, as are the tensions which the...

This collection of R. E. Bradbury's papers, originally published in 1973 includes edited sections of his (then hitherto) unpublished thesis on the Benin village in Western Nigeria. The book is arranged in 3 parts: historical and political studies of the...