Best of
Anthropology

1978

The Star Thrower


Loren Eiseley - 1978
    This volume includes selections that span Eiseley’s entire writing career and provide a sampling of the author as naturalist, poet, scientist, and humanist. “Loren Eiseley’s work changed my life” (Ray Bradbury). Introduction by W. H. Auden.

On Human Nature


Edward O. Wilson - 1978
    Wilson's book. On Human Nature begins a new phase in the most important intellectual controversy of this generation: Is human behavior controlled by the species' biological heritage? Does this heritage limit human destiny?With characteristic pugency and simplicity of style, the author of Sociobiology challenges old prejudices and current misconceptions about the nature-nurture debate. In his new preface E. O. Wilson reflects on how he came to write this book: how The Insect Societies led him to write Sociobiology, and how the political and religious uproar that engulfed that book persuaded him to write another book that would better explain the relevance of biology to the understanding of human behavior.

Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World


René Girard - 1978
    In its scope and itnerest it can be compared with Freud's Totem and Taboo, the subtext Girard refutes with polemic daring, vast erudition, and a persuasiveness that leaves the reader compelled to respond, one way or another.This is the single fullest summation of Girard's ideas to date, the book by which they will stand or fall. In a dialogue with two psychiatrists (Jean-Michel Oughourlian and Guy Lefort), Girard probes an encyclopedic array of topics, ranging across the entire spectrum of anthropology, psychoanalysis, and cultural production.Girard's point of departure is what he calles "mimesis," the conflict that arises when human rivals compete to differentiate themselves from each other, yet succeed only in becoming more and more alike. At certain points in the life of a society, according to Girard, this mimetic conflict erupts into a crisis in which all difference dissolves in indiscriminate violence. In primitive societies, such crises were resolved by the "scapegoating mechanism," in which the community, en masse, turned on an unpremeditated victim. The repression of this collective murder and its repetition in ritual sacrifice then formed the foundations of both religion and the restored social order.How does Christianity, at once the most "sacrificial" of religions and a faith with a non-violent ideology, fit into this scheme? Girard grants Freud's point, in Totem and Taboo, that Christianity is similar to primitive religion, but only to refute Freud—if Christ is sacrificed, Girard argues, it is not becuase God willed it, but because human beings wanted it.The book is not merely, or perhaps not mainly, biblical exegesis, for within its scope fall some of the most vexing problems of social history—the paradox that violence has social efficacy, the function of the scapegoat, the mechanism of anti-semitism.

Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations from Prophecy to the Present


Peter Nabokov - 1978
    Drawing from a wide range of sources - traditional narratives, Indian autobiographies, government transcripts, firsthand interviews, and more - Nabokov has assembled a remarkably rich and vivid collection, representing nothing less than an alternative history of North America. Beginning with the Indian's first encounters with the earliest explorers, traders, missionaries, settlers, and soldiers and continuing to the present, Native American Testimony presents an authentic, challenging picture of an important, tragic, and frequently misunderstood aspect of American history.

Orientalism


Edward W. Said - 1978
    This entrenched view continues to dominate western ideas and, because it does not allow the East to represent itself, prevents true understanding. Essential, and still eye-opening, Orientalism remains one of the most important books written about our divided world.

The Ohlone Way


Malcolm Margolin - 1978
    Grizzly bears lumbered down to the creeks to fish for silver salmon and steelhead trout. From vast marshlands geese, ducks, and other birds rose in thick clouds "with a sound like that of a hurricane." This land of "inexpressible fertility," as one early explorer described it, supported one of the densest Indian populations in all of North America.One of the most ground-breaking and highly-acclaimed titles that Heyday has published, _The Ohlone Way _ describes the culture of the Indian people who inhabited Bay Areas prior to the arrival of Europeans.

The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries


R. Gordon Wasson - 1978
    In this groundbreaking work, three experts—a mycologist, a chemist and a historian—argue persuasively that the sacred potion given to participants in the course of the ritual contained a psychoactive entheogen. The authors then expand the discussion to show that natural psychedelic agents have been used in spiritual rituals across history and cultures. Although controversial when first published in 1978, the book’s hypothesis has become more widely accepted in recent years, as knowledge of ethnobotany has deepened. The authors have played critical roles in the modern rediscovery of entheogens, and The Road to Eleusis presents an authoritative exposition of their views. The book’s themes of the universality of experiential religion, the suppression of that knowledge by exploitative forces, and the use of psychedelics to reconcile the human and natural worlds make it a fascinating and timely read. This 30th anniversary edition includes an appreciative preface by religious scholar Huston Smith and an updated exploration of the chemical evidence by Peter Webster.

Birth in Four Cultures: A Crosscultural Investigation of Childbirth in Yucatan, Holland, Sweden, and the United States


Brigitte Jordan - 1978
    Based on her fieldwork in the United States, Sweden, Holland, and Yucatan, Jordan develops a framework for the discussion and investigation of different birthing systems. Illustrated with useful examples and lively anecdotes from Jordan's own fieldwork, the Fourth Edition of this innovative comparative ethnography brings the reader to a deeper understanding of childbirth as a culturally grounded, biosocially mediated, and interactionally achieved event.The revised and greatly expanded edition of this award-winning book includes updated material and features three new chapters that represent the author's most recent work, probing even more fully the issues surrounding the anthropology of birth.

The Private Worlds of Dying Children


Myra Bluebond-Langner - 1978
    In a moving drama constructed from her observations of leukemic children, aged three to nine, in a hospital ward, she shows how the children come to know they are dying, how and why they attempt to conceal this knowledge from their parents and the medical staff, and how these adults in turn try to conceal from the children their awareness of the child's impending death.

People of the Lake


Richard E. Leakey - 1978
    Leakey is the story of mankind and its beginnings. Mass market paperback has different cover than pictured, same book.

Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains (New World Archaeological Record)


George C. Frison - 1978
    The entire area of the Northwestern Plains--mountains, foothills, and plains--has been a testing ground for human ingenuity. It provides an unusual opportunity to study more than 11,000 years of prehistroic hunting and gathering. Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains synthesizes what was a disparate body of data on the prehistory of the Northwestern Plains and presents it in rational and understandable terms.Key Features* Examines the prehistoric cultural chronology and the sources of the data for the Northwestern High Plains* Presents prehistoric hunting and gathering subsistence strategies for the Northwestern High Plains* Takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of archaeology using the data from geology, soils, faunal analysis, pollen, and phytolith studies* Provides a methodology for data recovery

Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature


Mary Midgley - 1978
    In Beast and Man Mary Midgley, one of our foremost intellectuals, stresses continuities. What makes people tick? Largely, she asserts, the same things as animals. She tells us humans are rather more like other animals than we previously allowed ourselves to believe, and reminds us just how primitive we are in comparison to the sophistication of many animals. A veritable classic for our age, Beast and Man has helped change the way we think about ourselves and the world in which we live.

Sex, Evolution and Behavior


Martin Daly - 1978
    The relation between ultimate and proximate levels of explanation is the major theme of the book. Two new chapters in this edition incorporate findings from recent research and there is also new material on humans, physiology, and development. Sex and reproductive behaviour are examined from an evolutionary comparative perspective and numerous empirical studies and examples are cited.

Finding the Center: The Art of the Zuni Storyteller


Dennis Tedlock - 1978
    This second edition features three new Zuni stories, updated transcriptions of stories from the original edition, a bibliography, and a new preface and introduction.

Pribumi Indonesians, the Chinese Minority and China


Leo Suryadinata - 1978
    It covers the period from 1949, when Indonesia became a sovereign state, to 1975, when the New Order Government abolished Special National Schools for the Chinese.

Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture


Victor Turner - 1978
    This classic book, now updated and extensively revised, examines the theological doctrines and popular notions that promote and sustain Christian pilgrimage, including their corresponding symbols and images.

Teonanacatl Hallucinogenic Mushrooms of North America


Jonathan Ott - 1978
    held in Port Townsend Washington in October 1977, this is the first comprehensive book on teonanácatl the sacred mushrooms of North America.

Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology


Lewis Roberts Binford - 1978
    The volume is now regarded as a classic of archaeological theory building. As Nicole Waguespack writes in her new prologue, "Binford documents Nunamiut hunting and butchering strategies and their impact on faunal assemblage variation. In classic Binfordian fashion, however, the book is also about much more and can serve as an essential sourcebook on both ethnoarchaeology and zooarchaeology." Originally published by Academic Press in 1978. Praise from readers "Binford's classic work is archaeology's Moby Dick-raw in the ethnographic details of butchering nature for human purposes and rich in the knowledge so gained for the study of the human past. Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology put complexity back into hunting and archaeologists have been feasting off the fat ever since." Clive Gamble, University of Southampton "Decades after its initial publication, Nunamuit Ethnoarchaeology remains a defining moment in archaeological method and theory. Binford's pioneering tour de force continues to inspire archaeologists and stands as a basic sourcebook for anyone interested in hunter-gatherer studies. This book is one of the reasons why I do what I do." Karen Lupo, Washington State University "Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology will always stand as one of the most important and innovative books in taphonomy, ethnoarchaeology, and hunter-gatherer ethnography. A brilliant treatise on hunter-gatherer foraging and a model for the rest of the field to follow on how to use the present to learn about the past." Curtis W. Marean, Arizona State University

Conquerors and Slaves


Keith Hopkins - 1978
    In this book, Keith Hopkins, who is both classicist and sociologist, uses various sociological concepts and methods to gain new insights into how traditional Roman institutions changed as the Romans acquired their empire. He examines the chain reactions resulting from increased wealth; various aspects of slavery, especially manumission and the cost of freedom; the curious phenomenon of the political power wielded by eunuchs at court; and in the final chapter he discusses the Roman emperor's divinity and the circulation of untrue stories, which were a currency of the political system. Professor Hopkins has developed an exciting approach to social questions in antiquity and his book should be of interest to all students of ancient history and of historical sociology.

Koko: A Talking Gorilla


Barbet Schroeder - 1978
    In 1977, acclaimed director Barbet Schoroeder and cinematographer Nestor Almendros entered the universe of the world's most famous primate to create the captivating documentry Koko: A Talking Gorilla.

The Potawatomis: Keepers of the Fire (The Civilization of the American Indian Series, #145)


R. David Edmunds - 1978
    Active participants in the fur trade, and close friends with many French fur traders and government leaders, the Potawatomis remained loyal to New France throughout the colonial period, resisting the lure of the inexpensive British trade goods that enticed some of their neighbors into alliances with the British. During the colonial wars Potawatomi warriors journeyed far to the south and east to fight alongside their French allies against Braddock in Pennsylvania and other British forces in New York.As French fortunes in the Old Northwest declined, the Potawatomis reluctantly shifted their allegiance to the British Crown, fighting against the Americans during the Revolution, during Tecumseh’s uprising, and during the War of 1812.The advancing tide of white settlement in the Potawatomi lands after the wars brought many problems for the tribe. Resisting attempts to convert them into farmers, they took on the life-style of their old friends, the French traders. Raids into western territories by more warlike members of the tribe brought strong military reaction from the United States government and from white settlers in the new territories. Finally, after great pressure by government officials, the Potawatomis were forced to cede their homelands to the United States in exchange for government annuities. Although many of the treaties were fraudulent, government agents forced the tribe to move west of the Mississippi, often with much turmoil and suffering.This volume, the first scholarly history of the Potawatomis and their influence in the Old Northwest, is an important contribution to American Indian history. Many of the tribe’s leaders, long forgotten, such as Main Poc, Siggenauk, Onanghisse, Five Medals, and Billy Caldwell, played key roles in the development of Indian-white relations in the Great Lakes region. The Potawatomi experience also sheds light on the development of later United States policy toward Indians of many other tribes.

The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850-1920


Daniel T. Rodgers - 1978
    That is the issue to which Rodgers always returns: how did men and women react to the economy of unprecedented plenty that the 19th-century revolution in power and machines had produced? . . . This is certainly . . . one of the most refreshing and penetrating analyses of the relation of diverse levels of 19th-century culture that it has been my pleasure to read in a long time."—Carl N. Degler, Science

The Republic of Technology: Reflections on Our Future Community


Daniel J. Boorstin - 1978
    He gives us a bold new view of the two kinds of revolution - the political and technological - and shows us how and why they are different, and why technological revolutions are irreversible.We are a center from which radiate forces that converge human experience everywhere. Though people around the world may not love one another any more than they did, yet their ways of life tend to become more and more alike. These same overwhelming forces of technology that homogenize the culture of the human race have disrupted the international community of nations; large and small nations become "equal," but each day the word "nation" grows more meaningless.Ideology, tribalism, nationalism, the crusading spirit in religion, bigotry, censorship, racism, persecution, immigration and emigration restriction, tariffs, and chauvinism do interpose barriers. For reasons which we are only beginning to discover, and which Boorstin explores in this controversial book, these barriers will only be temporary. The converging powers of technology will eventually triumph.

To Double Business Bound: Essays on Literature, Mimesis and Anthropology


René Girard - 1978
    This mimetic desire, Rene Girard contends, lies at the source of all human disorder and order. In brilliant readings of Dante, Camus, Nietzsche, Dostoevski, Levi-Strauss, Freud, and others, Girard draws out the thesis of mimetic desire -- and ponders its suppression in the West since Plato: The historical mutilation of mimesis ...was no mere oversight, no fortuitous 'error.' Real awareness of mimetic desire threatens the flattering delusion we entertain not only about ourselves as individuals but also about the nature and origin of that collective self we call our society.

The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaire


John M. Janzen - 1978
    John M. Janzen describes patterns of healing among the BaKongo of Lower Zaire in Africa, who, like many peoples elsewhere, utilize cosmopolitan medicine alongside traditional healing practices. What criteria, he asks, determine the choice of the alternative therapies? And what is their institutional interrelationship?In seeking answers, he analyzes case histories and cultural contexts to explore what social transactions, decisionmaking, illness and therapy classifications, and resource allocations are used in the choice of therapy by the ill, their kinfolk, friends, asociates, and specialized practitioners. From the Preface:This book presents an "on the ground" ethnographic account of how medical clients of one region of Lower Zaire diagnose illness, select therapies, and evaluate treatments, a process we call "therapy management." The book is intended to clarify a phenomenon of which central African clients have long been cognizant, namely, that medical systems are used in combination. Our study is aimed primarily at readers interested in the practical issues of medical decision-making in an African country, the cultural content of symptoms, and the dynamics of medical pluralism, that is, the existence in a single society of differently designed and conceived medical systems.

The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: From the Old Stone Age to the Persian Conquest


Seton Lloyd - 1978
    and the Persian invasion

Why the North Star Stands Still


Ursula Koering - 1978
    

Hustling and Other Hard Work: Life Styles in the Ghetto


Bettylou Valentine - 1978
    

Living Systems


James Grier Miller - 1978
    Firmly rooted in current scientific knowledge, Living Systems shows how biological and social systems are organized and operate at each of seven hierarchical levels: cells, organs (composed of cells), organisms (independent life forms), groups (families, committees, working groups, etc.), organizations (communities, cities, corporations, universities, etc.), societies or nations, and supranational systems. Offering a detailed analysis of each of the major aspects and characteristics encountered at all seven levels, Living Systems identifies multiple variables of each of 9 matter-energy and information-processing subsystems, the normal and pathological states of these variables, and practical indicators for measuring changes in them. It also specifies cross-level formal identities among the levels and describes the artifacts, machines, or technologies at each level. Presenting a wide range of examples, the author shows how the interactions of matter-energy and information flow among systems at one level create the next higher level. He also demonstrates the fascinating unity of the world's living and nonliving systems as well as the feasibility of a unified science to study them.

The Iceman Inheritance: Prehistoric Sources of Western Man's Racism, Sexism and Aggression


Michael Anderson Bradley - 1978
    the iceaan inheritance is the most glaring admission about the european's attempt to dominate the world through racism.there are a large number of books on this subject but the writers tend to hedge on the subject by inferring that in spite of the atrocities and the racism brought to this world by the caucasian race,they have given the world some order,some technology and arts and letters of lasting benefit.what the authors of these books do not take into consideration is that in spite of the contributions that benefit the world,europeans in their attempt at world domination created a disastrous climate for the world's people.

Wizard Of The Four Winds: A Shaman's Story


Douglas Sharon - 1978
    

The Disputing Process: Law In Ten Societies


Laura Nader - 1978
    

Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 15: Northeast


William C. Sturtevant - 1978
    Lawrence River, Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, Illinois, including cultures, languages, history, prehistory, and human biology.. Includes  extensive bibliographies and is well indexed. *Contains copyrighted material.

Sun, Moon, And Standing Stones


John Edwin Wood - 1978
    

A Book of 'Characters' from Theophrastus, Joseph Hall, Sir Thomas Overbury, Nicolas Breton, John Earle, Thomas Fuller, and Other English Authors; Jean de La Bruyere, Vauvenargues, and Other French Authors


Richard Aldington - 1978
    

As You Sow: Three Studies In The Social Consequences Of Agribusiness


Walter Rochs Goldschmidt - 1978
    No descriptive material is available for this title.

Families


Jane Howard - 1978
    Families are not dying, she finds, although they are evolving in various ways. From the tightest-knit nuclear family or extended clan to the most fragile new commune, the family in one guise or another remains everybody's most basic hold on reality. We may run away from our families as many do, but no sooner do we escape than we find another one, often very much like it. Sympathetically, with immense thrust, she crosses the continent to discover families' myths, jokes, and rituals. She leafs through their scrapbooks, sits on their porches, and takes part, when she can, in their feasts and celebrations. She talks to a father of eighteen, several double first cousins, stepchildren, multiple godmothers, an honorary relative of an Indian tribe, and a nine-year-old boy who has no family but his mother. She sits with a matriarch on the front stoop of a ghetto house, goes camping with a family in Mexico, has Thanksgiving with another in Iowa, and orders pizza with a Greek clan in Massachusetts. Howard reports on visits to conventional Southern and Jewish households and to innovative ones whose members, lacking a common history, plan on building common futures as if water were after all as thick as blood. She examines the notion that there are ways and ways of achieving kinship, of which birth and marriage are only the most obvious. Millions of clans and families all over the United States continue to celebrate, quarrel, disband, reunite, and endure. Jane Howard makes us realize how our lives are interwoven both with the families we are born into and with those we invent as we go through life. 'Families' is compassionate, provocative, and profound. The paperback edition of this important work will be essential reading for all those with an interest in the study of familial bonds, particularly sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists.

Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 8: California (Handbook of North American Indians)


Robert F. Heizer - 1978
    Sturtevant, general editor; Robert F. Heizer, volume editor. Summarizes what is known of the aboriginal culture forms and practices of about 60 California tribes. Describes the environment, prehistoric archeology, historical archeology, language classification, culture, population numbers since the time of European discovery, and the history of exploration and settlement by Whites.Contains copyright material. L.C. card 77-17162. Item 909-D-1.

Yeshua Buddha: An Interpretation of the New Testament Theology as a Meaningful Myth (Quest Books)


Jay G. Williams - 1978
    Buddha means "the Enlightened One," and the author uses this word in the generic sense. He explores the possibility that Yeshua represents a way to enlightenment which is neither Western nor Eastern but universal and perennial, a way often misunderstood by Christian theologians.

Talking Past Each Other: Problems Of Cross Cultural Communication


Joan Metge - 1978
    

Transformations: The Anthropology of Children S Play


Helen B. Schwartzman - 1978
    In writing this book, I wondered first if it would be taken seriously and then if it might be too serious. Eventually, I realized that these concerns were cast in terms of the major dichotomy that I wished to question, that is, the very perva sive and very inaccurate division that Western cultures make between play and seriousness (or play and work, fantasy and reality, and so forth). The study of play provides researchers with a special arena for re-thinking this opposition, and in this book an attempt is made to do this by reviewing and evaluating studies of children's transformations (their play) in relation to the history of anthropologists' transformations (their theories). While studying play, I have wondered in the company of many individuals. I would first like to thank my husband, John Schwartzman, for acting as both my strongest supporter and, as an anthropological colleague, my severest critic. His sense of nonsense is always novel as well as instructive. I am also very grateful to Linda Barbera-Stein for her Sherlock Holmes style help in locating obscure references, checking and cross-checking information, and patience and persistence in the face of what at times appeared to be bibliographic chaos. I also owe special thanks to my teachers of anthropology-Paul J. Bohannan, Johannes Fabian, Edward T. Hall, and Roy Wagner-whose various orientations have directly and indirectly influenced the approach presented in this book."

Grand Canyon an Anthology: A Selection of Outstanding Writings


Bruce E. Babbitt - 1978