Anthropology Books

The Italian peasantry has often been described as tragic, backward, hopeless, downtrodden, static, and passive. In Fate and Honor, Family and Village, Rudolph Bell argues against this characterization by reconstructing the complete demographic history of...

Social anthropology, defined operationally in terms of what social anthropologists have done in the last fifty years, is the study and comparison of tribal societies and of small fields of social life with emphasis on the role of custom. When a social...

This new edition of Culture, Behavior, and Personality is organized into  ve parts. Part I de nes the  eld of inquiry, Part II presents a critical review of existing theories and methods, Part III expounds LeVine's unique Darwinian model of...

Society and Politics in India

Originally published in 1892 by the Fine Art Society in London and simultaneously in Yokohama, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, this book shows the context and growing interest in the arts and crafts of this newly discovered burgeoning country with such artistry...

This volume investigates ideas, beliefs and sentiments in relation to social organization.

Spirited Histories combines ethnography with critical theory to provide a sophisticated exploration of the intersection of haunting and the paranormal with technology, media, and history. Retrieving the past in places of trauma and death can take on many...

The current higher education policy and practice landscape is simultane-ously marked by uncertainty and hope, and nowhere are these tensions more present than in discussions and actions around general education. This volume uses an anthropological...

Exploring the controversy surrounding therapeutic human cloning, this book draws upon data collected from news articles and interviews with journalists to examine the role of mass media in shaping biomedical controversies. With specific reference to the...

How do the media represent obesity and eating disorders? How are these representations related to one another? And how do the news media select which scientific findings and policy decisions to report? Multi-disciplinary in approach, Obesity, Eating...

This book is about American Indians and my wonderful experiences at the  Pine Ridge Indin Reservtion in western South Dakota. My first sweat lodge was very haunting and deeply moving, and hot. The drums resonated, people chanted and prayed. I...

Culture has been subject to critical debate in anthropology during the past decade and this is related to a shift in emphasis from the bounded local culture to transnational cultural flows. At the same time that cultural mobility is being emphasized, the...

African Voices, African Lives explores the world of 'Mohammed', a swahili peasant living on Mafia Island, Tanzania. Through his own words - some written, some spoken - and those of his relatives, including his ex-wife and one of his daughters, he enables...

The Future of Anthropological Knowledge the chapters explore the question of the nature of social knowledge from a variety of perspectives and locations such as China, Africa, the USA and elsewhere. By examining the changing nature of anthropological...

Throughout the 1980s there have been calls, often from development organizations of global repute, for the incorporation of social science perspectives into the design and management of sustainable development programmes. Practising Development is the...

In late-1990s Britain, the salwaar-kameez or 'Punjabi suit' emerged as a high-fashion garment. Popular both on the catwalk and on the street, it made front-page news when worn by Diana, Princess of Wales and by Cherie Booth, the wife of UK Prime Minister...

Taking a unique anthropological apprach, Bush Base: Forest Farm explores the management of resources in third would development programmes. The contributors, all distinguished anthropologists with practical experience of development projects, focus on...

Anthropological writings by anthropologists in the field have long been a valuable tool to the profession. But until now, the theoretical implications of its use have not been fully explored. Anthropology and Autobiography provides unique insights into...

This book examines the role of social process and routinised violence in the use of underaged soldiers in the country now known as South Sudan during the twenty-one-year civil war between Sudan's northern and southern regions. Drawing on accounts of...

This book presents a conceptual and methodological framework to understand South Asia by engaging with the practices of sociology and social anthropology in India and Nepal. It provides a new imagination of South Asia by connecting historical, political,...

Focusing on Slovakia and East Central Europe, this book examines the cultural economy of protest and considers how the origins of political movements - progressive and reactionary - derive from resilient agrarian features.It draws attention to...

Focused on the life and work of Francis Huxley (1923-2016), this book offers an exploration of the search to understand the human condition, one which is simultaneously biographical, philosophical, cultural, historical, political and epistemological.A...

This volume offers an overview of what it was like to be female and to live and die in Victorian England (c. 1837-1901), by situating this experience within the scientific and social contexts of the times. With a temporal focus on women's life...

How did labor NGOs come into existence in contemporary China? How do labor activists act - or not act - when the limits of state tolerance are unclear? With a focus on labor NGOs in South China and Western funding agencies, this book sets out to address...

With the global expansion of reproductive technologies, there are ever more ways to create a family, and more family types than ever before. This book explores the experiences of those persons - whether single, in a couple, or part of collective...

This volume explores the changes that occurred during the Viking Age, as Scandinavian societies fell in line with the larger forces that dominated the Insular world and Continental Europe, absorbing the powerful symbiosis of Christianity and monarchy,...

This volume describes and analyzes alternative and emerging models of non-territorial autonomy (NTA), particularly in relation to decentralization. The authors push the NTA debate in new directions by offering a re-conceptualization based on...

Collaborations responds to the growing pressure on the humanities and social sciences to justify their impact and utility after cuts in public spending, and the introduction of neoliberal values into academia. Arguing 'in defense of' anthropology, the...

This book lays out a framework for understanding connections between home and mobility, and situates this within a multidisciplinary field of social research. The authors show how the idea of home offers a privileged entry point into forced migration,...

Against the background of China's rapidly growing, and sometimes highly controversial, activities in Africa, this book is among the first of its kind to systematically document Sino-African interactions at the everyday level. Based on sixteen months of...

As governments increasingly legalize and expand the availability of casinos, hoping to offset the impacts of manufacturing decline through the advancement of gambling commerce, this book examines what casinos do-and do not do-for host communities in...

Amanda Glauert revisits Beethoven's songs and studies his profound engagement with the aesthetics of the poets he was setting, particularly those of Herder and Goethe. The book offers readers a rich exploration of the poetical and philosophical context...

This book applies a framework of 'trans vitalities' through an ethnographically-anchored exploration of trans coalitional labor and activism in Washington, DC. Specifically, it considers how trans social justice work at the local level exemplifies why...

This book explores the nature of parliamentary representation within the autocratic regimes of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. It argues that although many parliaments are elected under flawed or non-competitive elections, autocratic governments are...

The contributors to this volume examine the actual workings and on-the-ground effects of contemporary political economic shifts in the Global South, and implications for reconfiguring social networks, conceptions and practices of governance, and...

Increasing American fear about terrorism, environmental catastrophes, pandemics, and economic crises has fueled interest in "prepping": confronting disaster by mastering survivalist skills. This trend of self-reliance is not merely evidence of the...

Ever since China and India began to reform their planned economies in the 1980s, the world has watched as two quite differenct development success stories have unfolded. One side has been China's rapid economic growth and remarkable achievements in...

The half century between 1783 and 1833 witnessed the creation of British India. Through his writings, the leading East India Company servant, Sir John Malcolm helped to shape the historical thought of British empire-building in India. Comparing Malcolm...

Winner of The Boyer Prize from the Society for Psychological Anthropology!!!This book explores the experience of suffering in order to shed light on the nature of the human self. Using an intimate life history approach, it examines ways people struggle...

Conventional scholarship on written communication positions the Western alphabet as a precondition for literacy. Thus, pictographic, non-verbal writing practices of Mesoamerica remain obscured by representations of lettered speech. This book examines how...

This book looks at the post-Holocaust experience with emphasis on aspects of its impact on popular culture.

In the land of samba there is another vibrant culture capturing the attention of urban youth. This compelling account argues that hip hop, while certainly a product of globalized flows of information and technology, is by no means homogenous. Using more...

This book covers significant new ground, examining the impact and imprint of new leading technology on a range of popular expressions. This technology includes the internet, the computer, the cell phone, television, and radio, among others. Some of the...

This book provides the first in-depth analysis of the global phenomenon of snowboarding culture. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, it offers key insights into the sport, lifestyle, industry, media, gender relations, travel, and physical experience...

Examining the increasingly powerful role of standards in the governing of economic, political and social life, this book draws upon governmentality and actor network theory to explore how standards and standardizing projects are articulated and rendered...

This book begins with a discussion of the key issues of globalization, migration, multiculturalism, multilingualism and global cities. It then turns to four detailed case studies and through them explores the ambivalent and multi-layered identitites of...