General

This study challenges the assumption that households in non-capitalist economies are "self-contained labour units" which are not inherently brought into relationship by the production process. Concentrating on the organization of agricultural production...

The societies of the Vaupes region are now among the most documented indigenous cultures of the New World, in part because they are thought to resemble earlier civilizations lost during initial colonial conflict. Here at last is the eagerly awaited...

This study has arisen out of a fascination with the vibrant nature of African societies, their vitality, and particularly the way in which they seem to be able time and again to overcome tribulation and turmoil. In the southern African region, ngoma, an...

Written over a thirty-year span, Michael Lambek's essays in this collection point with definitive force toward a single central truth: ethics is intrinsic to social life. As he shows through rich ethnographic accounts and multiple theoretical traditions,...

For many of us, one of the most important ways of coping with the death of a close relative is talking about them, telling all who will listen what they meant to us. Yet the Gypsies of central France, the Manus, not only do not speak of their dead, they...

Contemporary anthropology has changed drastically in the new millennium, expanding beyond the anachronistic study of "primitive" societies to confront the burning social, economic, and political challenges of the day. In the process,...

Alcohol in Ancient Mexico reconstructs the variety and extent of distillation traditions in the ancient cultures of Mexico, describing in detail the various plants and processes used to make such beverages, their prevalence, and their significance for...

Shamanism is the worlds oldest religion. The rituals and beliefs of this ancient tradition were carried from Asia and Siberia into the New World by nomadic hunting bands beginning 12,000 years ago. This unique collection of essays on shamanism in Central...

In 1995 a half-vacant public housing project on Chicago's Near West Side fell to the wrecking ball. The demolition and reconstruction of the Henry Horner housing complex ushered in the most ambitious urban housing experiment of its kind: smaller,...

A great mobilization began in South Korea in the 1990s: adult transnational adoptees began to return to their birth country and meet for the first time with their birth parents-sometimes in televised encounters which garnered high ratings. What makes...

Surrendering to Utopia is a critical and wide-ranging study of anthropology's contributions to human rights. Providing a unique window into the underlying political and intellectual currents that have shaped human rights in the postwar period, this...

Challenging much received wisdom about nation-states-how they form, what sustains them, why they fail-this study of subaltern social groups in the Chachapoyas region of Peru analyzes the emergence of the modern nation-state "from below." By...

When Hudson's Bay Company surveyor Peter Fidler made contact with the Ktunaxa at the Gap of the Oldman River in the winter of 1792, his Piikani guides brought him to the river's namesake. These were the playing grounds where Napi, or Old Man, taught the...

The discipline of anthropology is, at its best, characterized by turbulence, self-examination, and inventiveness. In recent decades, new thinking and practice within the field has certainly reflected this pattern, as shown for example by numerous...

In present-day Greece many people still speak of exotikNB--mermaids, dog-form creatures, and other monstrous beings similar to those pictured on medieval maps. Challenging the conventional notion that these often malevolent demons belong exclusively to a...

When Mary Steedly went to North Sumatra, Indonesia, she intended to study the curing practices of Karo Batak spirit mediums, the gurus who keep a community in touch with its ancestors. She became fascinated by the stories these women and men told of...

Eleven scholars present a broad survey of Arabic-Islamic culture and society in the Near East. Art, literature, science, philosophy, religion, politics, international relations, and social problems are considered. Originally published in 1966. The...

Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) was a wide-ranging thinker whose ideas affected almost every branch of the social sciences. And nowhere is this impact more evident or more persistent than on the study of myth, ritual, and religion. He articulated as...

A wide range of expert opinion on current demographic problems is presented in this book, based on the proceedings of the 1949 meeting of the Population Association of America. The contributors are: S.L. Wolfbein, P.H. Jacobson, C. Tietze, I. Taeuber, J...

An important contribution to our cumulative knowledge of castes, based on a case study of the pueblo of San Luis Jilotepeque, about ninety miles from Guatemala City in Central America. "Much of the fascination of the book derives from the intrinsic...

Throughout Latin America, observers and activists have found in religion a promise of deep and long-lasting democratization. But for religion to change culture and politics, religion itself must change. Such change is not only a matter of doctrine,...

Eleven scholars present a broad survey of Arabic-Islamic culture and society in the Near East. Art, literature, science, philosophy, religion, politics, international relations, and social problems are considered. Originally published in 1966. The...

Recent insights into the nature of representation and power relations have signaled an important shift in perspective on anthropology: from a fieldwork-based "science" of culture to an interpretive activity bound to the discursive and...

Whereas most previous work on Maya healing has focused on ritual and symbolism, this book presents evidence that confirms the scientific foundations of traditional Maya medicine. Data drawn from analysis of the medical practices of two Mayan-speaking...

Perhaps the most famous modern-day millenarian movements are the "cargo cults" of Melanesia, active especially during the 1930s and 1950s. Melanesians had long believed that the sign of the millennium would be the arrival of their ancestors in...

This book pens a window on the experiences of urban people living through one of Africa's most dramatic economic declines in the postcolonial era by focusing on such broad themes as household dynamics, gender politics, and informal economy in Mtendere...

Though it is now discredited, totemism once captured the imagination of Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, James Frazer, and other prominent Victorian thinkers. In this lively intellectual history, Robert Alun Jones considers the construction of a theory and...

In Oklahoma in the 1980s and 1990s, suicide-not accident as previously assumed-was the leading cause of agricultural fatalities among farmers. Men were five times more likely to die by suicide than by accident. What was causing these men-but not women-to...

The Lacandon Maya are a small-scale forest society currently on the brink of extinction. Small groups of Northern Lacandon escaped evangelization by dispersing into the jungle, moving from the Guatemalan Peten to Chiapas in southern Mexico during the...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781607322245Author Matt SponhiemerFormat HardbackPage Count 368Imprint University Press of ColoradoPublisher University Press of ColoradoWeight(grams) 790g

Re-Creating Primordial Time offers a new perspective on the Maya codices, documenting the extensive use of creation mythology and foundational rituals in the hieroglyphic texts and iconography of these important manuscripts. Focusing on both...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781607321842Author E. Paul DurrenbergerFormat PaperbackPage Count 240Imprint University Press of ColoradoPublisher University Press of ColoradoWeight(grams)...

The third edition of this bestselling book introduces readers to anthropology, and the world around it, by connecting important concepts to current global issues. A question-based approach encourages readers to understand specific issues in a broader...

Contemporary anthropology has changed drastically in the new millennium, expanding beyond the anachronistic study of "primitive" societies to confront the burning social, economic, and political challenges of the day. In the process,...

A Thousand Tiny Cuts chronicles the slow transformation of a connected region into national borderlands. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork in northern Bangladesh and eastern India, Sahana Ghosh shows the foundational place of gender and sexuality in the...

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) was founded in 1990 as the first NGO devoted to advancing LGBT human rights worldwide. How, this book asks, is that mission translated into practice? What do transnational LGBT human...

In Oklahoma in the 1980s and 1990s, suicide-not accident as previously assumed-was the leading cause of agricultural fatalities among farmers. Men were five times more likely to die by suicide than by accident. What was causing these men-but not women-to...

This work answers the hypothetical question: What would the Americas be like today - politically, economically, culturally - if Columbus and the Europeans had never found them, and how would American peoples interact with the world's other societies? It...

The first Aleut ethnography in over three decades, Aleut Identities provides a contemporary view of indigenous Alaskans and is the first major work to emphasize the importance of commercial labour and economies to maintain traditional means of survival...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781607320623Author Edward SchortmanFormat HardbackPage Count 336Imprint University Press of ColoradoPublisher University Press of ColoradoWeight(grams) 537g