Best of
Anthropology

2000

The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature


Geoffrey Miller - 2000
    Psychologist Geoffrey Miller offers the most convincing-and radical-explanation for how and why the human mind evolved.Consciousness, morality, creativity, language, and art: these are the traits that make us human. Scientists have traditionally explained these qualities as merely a side effect of surplus brain size, but Miller argues that they were sexual attractors, not side effects. He bases his argument on Darwin's theory of sexual selection, which until now has played second fiddle to Darwin's theory of natural selection, and draws on ideas and research from a wide range of fields, including psychology, economics, history, and pop culture. Witty, powerfully argued, and continually thought-provoking, The Mating Mind is a landmark in our understanding of our own species.

Foreign to Familiar: A Guide to Understanding Hot- And Cold-Climate Cultures


Sarah Lanier - 2000
    Whether you are a cross-cultural worker or simply live in a cross-cultural neighborhood, you'll find this book to be a valuable resource for understanding and relating to others from a different climate.

The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill


Tim Ingold - 2000
    He argues that what we are used to calling cultural variation consists, in the first place, of variations in skill. Neither innate nor acquired, skills are grown, incorporated into the human organism through practice and training in an environment. They are thus as much biological as cultural. The twenty-three essays comprising this book focus in turn on the procurement of livelihood, on what it means to 'dwell', and on the nature of skill, weaving together approaches from social anthropology, ecological psychology, developmental biology and phenomenology in a way that has never been attempted before. The book is set to revolutionise the way we think about what is 'biological' and 'cultural' in humans, about evolution and history, and indeed about what it means for human beings - at once organisms and persons - to inhabit an environment. The Perception of the Environment will be essential reading not only for anthropologists but also for biologists, psychologists, archaeologists, geographers and philosophers.

Defending the Cavewoman: And Other Tales of Evolutionary Neurology


Harold Klawans - 2000
    As a sympathetic brain detective, Klawans deduced a great deal from his patients, not only about the immediate causes of their ailments but also about the evolutionary underpinnings of their behaviour.

The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers, and the Shaping of the World


Hugh Brody - 2000
    Contrary to stereotype, he says, it is the farmers and their colonizing descendants—ourselves—who are the true nomads, doomed to the geographical and spiritual restlessness embodied in the story of Genesis. By contrast, the hunters have a deep attachment to the place and ways of their ancestors that stems from an enviable sense, distinctively expressed in thought, word, and act, of being part of the fabric of the natural and spiritual worlds.

Dangerous Emotions


Alphonso Lingis - 2000
    An eloquent and insightful commentator on continental philosophers, he is also a phenomenologist who has gone to live in many lands. Dangerous Emotions continues the line of inquiry begun in Abuses, taking the reader to Easter Island, Japan, Java, and Brazil as Lingis poses a new range of questions and brings his extraordinary descriptive skills to bear on innocence and the love of crime, the relationships of beauty with lust and of joy with violence and violation. He explores the religion of animals, the force in blessings and in curses. When the sphere of work and reason breaks down, and in catastrophic events we catch sight of cosmic time, our anxiety is mixed with exhilaration and ecstasy. More than acceptance of death, can philosophy understand joy in dying? Haunting and courageous, Lingis's writing has generated intense interest and debate among gender and cultural theorists as well as philosophers, and Dangerous Emotions is certain to introduce his work to an ever broader circle of readers.

Of Two Minds: An Anthropologist Looks at American Psychiatry


T.M. Luhrmann - 2000
    R. Luhrmann examines the world of psychiatry, a profession which today is facing some of its greatest challenges from within and without, as it continues to offer hope to many.At a time when mood-altering drugs have revolutionized the treatment of the mentally ill and HMO’s are forcing caregivers to take the pharmocological route over the talking cure, Luhrmann places us at the heart of the matter and allows us to see exactly what is at stake. Based on extensive interviews with patients and doctors, as well as investigative fieldwork in residence programs, private psychiatric hospitals, and state hospitals, Luhrmann’s groundbreaking book shows us how psychiatrists develop and how the enormous ambiguities in the field affect its practitioners and patients.

Body & Soul: Human Nature & the Crisis in Ethics


J.P. Moreland - 2000
    Many now argue that neurophysiology demonstrates the radical dependence, indeed, identity, between mind and brain. Advances in genetics and in mapping human DNA, some say, show there is no need for the hypothesis of body-soul dualism. Even many Christian intellectuals have come to view the soul as a false Greek concept that is outdated and unbiblical. Concurrent with the demise of dualism has been the rise of advanced medical technologies that have brought to the fore difficult issues at both edges of life. Central to questions about abortion, fetal research, reproductive techologies, cloning and euthanasia is our understanding of the nature of human personhood, the reality of life after death and the value of ethical or religious knowledge as compared to scientific knowledge. In this careful treatment, J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae argue that the rise of these problems alongside the demise of Christian dualism is no coincidence. They therefore employ a theological realism to meet these pressing issues, and to present a reasonable and biblical depiction of human nature as it impinges upon critical ethical concerns. This vigorous philosophical and ethical defense of human nature as body and soul, regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees, will be for all a touchstone for debate and discussion for years to come.

The Children: Refugees and Migrants


Sebastião Salgado - 2000
    Part of a major exhibition at the United Nations in New York City during the Millenium Assembly in 2000, "The Children" is a companion volume to Salgado's "Migrations."

Sacred Legacy: Edward S Curtis and the North American Indian


Edward S. Curtis - 2000
    This monumental project was hailed by "The New York Herald" as "the most gigantic undertaking since the making of the King James edition of the Bible."In this landmark volume, almost 200 of the finest examples of Cu rt is's photographs are reproduced with startling fidelity to his original prints. Produced to the very highest standards, "Sacred Legacy" presents Curtis's work without compromise for the first time in the modern era. Taken together, these profound images constitute no less than the core and essence of his life's work. Until now, virtually none of Curtis's photographs have been reproduced in a manner that captures the clarity and richness of his original master prints. In "Sacred Legacy," his greatest images are reproduced from the finest source materials available -- a significant number from breathtaking platinum, gold, and silver prints. All have been carefully selected for pub lication and for an accompanying international exhibition by Curtis authority Christopher Cardozo.In an effort to bring a new understanding to Curtis's monumental work, "Sacred Legacy" was developed according to the organizing principles set forth by the great photographer himself. Following the path la id out in his 20 volume magnum opus, "The North American Indian," geographic regions are presented separately and individual tribes within each region are depicted and described. Interspersed between these sections are compelling portrayals of those aspects of life common to all tribes, among them spirituality. ceremony, arts, and the activities of daily life.With "The North American Indian," Curtis achieved the impossible: an extraordinary 20 -volume set of handmade books composed of nearly 4,000 pages of text and 2,200 images presenting more than 80 of North America's Native nations. Luminous, iconic, and profoundly revealing, the pictures that form the heart of the original project are reproduced here in "Sacred Legacy." These extraordinary photographs had an immense impact on the national imagination and continue to shape the way we see Native life and culture."Sacred Legacy" is a fitting testament to the profound beauty, meaning, and complexity of Indian life and to Edward S. Curtis -- a man whose wisdom, passion, and strength drove him to devote thirty years to capturing the nobility and pride of the Native peoples of North America. The photographs in this brilliant volume represent the most important presentation of Curtis's work since the publication of the first volume of "Me North American Indian" nearly a century ago.

David Attenborough: The Early Years


David Attenborough - 2000
    Specially recorded for audio, his adventures are sometimes life-threatening, often hilarious, and always totally absorbing. The warmth and enthusiasm that have made him a broadcasting legend are instantly apparent here as he recounts his magical journeys. The selections include: *Zoo Quest For A Dragon: This installment takes us back to one of David's earliest projects, when the BBC and London Zoo joined forces on several animal-collecting expeditions in Indonesia. (3 CDs); *Quest In Paradise: David tells of being an onlooker at a formal love-making ceremony, seeing the skills of ritual axe making, trying to master pidgin English, and witnessing a sing song at which hundreds of tribesmen came together from all parts of New Guinea. (3 CDs); and *Quest Under Capricorn: This volume recounts his expedition to Australia in search of rare species. (3 CDs)

Wandering God: A Study in Nomadic Spirituality


Morris Berman - 2000
    Here, in a remarkable discussion of our hunter-gatherer ancestry and the "paradoxical" mode of perception that it involved, Berman shows how a sense of alertness, or secular/sacred immediacy, subsequently got buried by the rise of sedentary civilization, religion, and vertical power relationships.In an integrated tour de force, Wandering God explores the meaning of Paleolithic art, the origins of social inequality, the nature of cross-cultural child rearing, the relationship between women and agriculture, and the world view of present-day nomadic peoples, as well as the emergence of "paradoxical" consciousness in the philosophical writings of the twentieth century.

The Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine


Barbara Tedlock - 2000
    Here is a fascinating expedition into this ancient tradition, from its prehistoric beginnings to the work of women shamans across the globe today.Shamanism was not only humankind’s first spiritual and healing practice, it was originally the domain of women. This is the claim of Barbara Tedlock’s provocative and myth-shattering book. Reinterpreting generations of scholarship, Tedlock–herself an expert in dreamwork, divination, and healing–explains how and why the role of women in shamanism was misinterpreted and suppressed, and offers a dazzling array of evidence, from prehistoric African rock art to modern Mongolian ceremonies, for women’s shamanic powers.Tedlock combines firsthand accounts of her own training among the Maya of Guatemala with the rich record of women warriors and hunters, spiritual guides, and prophets from many cultures and times. Probing the practices that distinguish female shamanism from the much better known male traditions, she reveals:• The key role of body wisdom and women’s eroticism in shamanic trance and ecstasy• The female forms of dream witnessing, vision questing, and use of hallucinogenic drugs• Shamanic midwifery and the spiritual powers released in childbirth and monthly female cycles• Shamanic symbolism in weaving and other feminine arts• Gender shifting and male-female partnership in shamanic practiceFilled with illuminating stories and illustrations, The Woman in the Shaman’s Body restores women to their essential place in the history of spirituality and celebrates their continuing role in the worldwide resurgence of shamanism today.From the Hardcover edition.

Blood Red Roses: The Archaeology of a Mass Grave from the Battle of Towton AD 1461


Veronica Fiorato - 2000
    In 1996 a mass grave of soldiers was discovered there by chance. This was the catalyst for a multi-disciplinary research project, still unique in Britain ten years after the initial discovery, which included a study of the skeletal remains, the battlefield landscape, the historical evidence and contemporary arms and armour. The discoveries were dramatic and moving; the individuals had clearly suffered traumatic deaths and subsequent research highlighted the often multiple wounds each individual had received before and, in some cases, after they had died. As well as the exciting forensic work the project also revealed much about medieval weaponry and fighting. Blood Red Roses contains all the information about this fascinating discovery, as well as discussing its wider historical, heritage and archaeological implications. The second edition features new chapters by a re-enactor and a history teacher, which apply the research from the initial study to produce a veritable living history.

Heartsblood


David Petersen - 2000
    In Heartsblood, nationally acclaimed nature writer and veteran outdoorsman David Petersen draws clear distinctions between true hunting and contemporary hunter behavior, praising what's right about the former and damning what's wrong with the latter, as he seeks to render the terms "hunter" and "anti-hunter" palpable.

Anasazi America: Seventeen Centuries on the Road from Center Place


David E. Stuart - 2000
    A vast and powerful alliance of thousands of farming hamlets and nearly 100 spectacular towns integrated the region through economic and religious ties, and the whole system was interconnected with hundreds of miles of roads. It took these Anasazi farmers more than seven centuries to lay the agricultural, organizational, and technological groundwork for the creation of classic Chacoan civilization, which lasted about 200 years--only to collapse spectacularly in a mere 40.Why did such a great society collapse? Who survived? Why? In this lively book anthropologist/archaeologist David Stuart presents answers to these questions that offer useful lessons to modern societies. His account of the rise and fall of the Chaco Anasazi brings to life the people known to us today as the architects of Chaco Canyon, the spectacular national park in New Mexico that thousands of tourists visit every year.

Developmental Juvenile Osteology


Louise Scheuer - 2000
    This volume collates information never before assembled in one volume. Profusely illustrated with high quality drawings, it also provides a complete description of the adult skeleton and its anomalies.

The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mysteries of the Earliest Peoples from the West


J.P. Mallory - 2000
    For thousands of years the occupants of the barren wastes and oases that would later become the Silk Road buried their dead in the desiccating sands of the Taklimakan, the second greatest desert on earth. This arid environment, preserving body and clothing, allows an unparalleled glimpse into the lives and appearance of a prehistoric people: these are the faces of ancient Indo-Europeans who settled in the Tarim Basin on the western rim of China some four millennia ago, 2000 years before West and East recognized each other's existence. The book examines the clues left by physical remains; economy, technology, and textiles; and traces of local languages. It is the definitive account of one of the most extraordinary archaeological discoveries of recent times. 190 illustrations, 13 in color.

Writing the New Ethnography


H.L. Goodall Jr. - 2000
    Goodall's distinctive style will engage and energize students, offering them provocative advice and exercises for turning qualitative data and field notes into compelling representations of social life.

Highlanders: A Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory


Yo'av Karny - 2000
    Moreover, in the 1990s Russia twice went to war in the Caucasus, and suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a nation so tiny that it could fit into a single district of Moscow.What is it about the Caucasus that makes the region so restless, so unpredictable, so imbued with heroism but also with fanaticism and pain? In Highlanders, Yo'av Karny offers a better understanding of a region described as a "museum of civilizations," where breathtaking landscapes join with an astounding human diversity. Karny has spent many months among members of some of the smallest ethnic groups on earth, all of them living in the grim shadow of an unhappy empire. But his book is a journey not only to a geographic region but also to darker sides of the human soul, where courage vies with senseless vindictiveness; where honor and duty require people to share the present with long-dead ancestors, some real, some imaginary; and where an ancient way of life is drawing to an end under the combined weight of modernity and intolerance.

Evolution and Human Behavior


John Cartwright - 2000
    This introductory book provides an overview of the key theoretical principles of human sociobiology and evolutionary psychology and shows how they illuminate the ways humans think and behave. The book takes as one of its main premises the idea that we think, feel, and act in ways that once enhanced the reproductive success of our ancestors.The book covers fundamental issues such as the origins and function of sexual reproduction, mating behavior, human mate choice, patterns of violence in families, altruistic behavior, the evolution of brain size and the origins of language, the modular mind, and the relationship between genes and culture. It also examines the larger implications of Darwinism for how we view ourselves as a species and our sense of ourselves as a moral animal. The book includes a valuable historical introduction to evolutionary theories of behavior and concludes with an examination of the social and political ramifications of evolutionary thought. It contains numerous diagrams and illustrations, comprehensive references, summaries, and suggestions for further reading.

Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship


Bruce Lincoln - 2000
    Lincoln then turns his attention to the period when myth was recuperated as a privileged type of narrative, a process he locates in the political and cultural ferment of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Here, he connects renewed enthusiasm for myth to the nexus of Romanticism, nationalism, and Aryan triumphalism, particularly the quest for a language and set of stories on which nation-states could be founded.In the final section of this wide-ranging book, Lincoln advocates a fresh approach to the study of myth, providing varied case studies to support his view of myth—and scholarship on myth—as ideology in narrative form.

Riding Windhorses: A Journey into the Heart of Mongolian Shamanism


Sarangerel - 2000
    They counsel a path of moderation in one's actions and reverence for the natural world, which they view as mother to humanity. Mongolians believe that if natural resources are taken without thanking the spirits for what they have given, those resources will not be replaced. Unlike many other cultures whose shamanic traditions were undermined by modern civilization, shamans in the remote areas of southern Siberia and Mongolia are still the guardians of the environment, the community, and the natural order. Riding Windhorses is the first book written on Mongolian and Siberian shamanism by a shaman trained in that tradition. A thorough introduction to Mongolian/Siberian shamanic beliefs and practices, it includes working knowledge of the basic rituals and various healing and divination techniques. Many of the rituals and beliefs described here have never been published and are the direct teachings of the author's own shaman mentors.

Over the Line: The Art and Life of Jacob Lawrence


Peter Nesbett - 2000
    It is the first multi-author, in-depth probe of the artist's entire career: the nature of his work, his education, the critical climate in which he worked, and his use of materials and techniques. It reproduces, in full color, more than 200 works, most of which have not been published in color, or at all, in other books on the artist.An extensive chronology, collating events in his life with his public reception -- including selected exhibitions, publications, honors, and awards -- is illustrated with family photographs. Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) spent his childhood in New York City, attending classes at the Harlem Community Art Center and the American Artists School, and later working for the Federal Art Project. While still in his twenties Lawrence exhibited his paintings at major museums across the country, including the Phillips Collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he became the first African American artist represented in the permanent collection. He lived, painted, and taught in New York City until 1971, when he moved to Seattle to join the faculty of the University of Washington. He was the recipient of numerous awards including the National Medal of Arts.The paperback edition of Over the Line is published in conjunction with a major exhibition opening at the Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, on May 26, 2001, and traveling to the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

The New Atlas of Human Anatomy [With CDROM]


Thomas O. McCracken - 2000
    The amazing imagery in this book and CD-ROM comes from the world's first comprehensive library of three-dimensional anatomy models, the result of the process of digitizing the thousands of cross sections of an actual human body. This stunning atlas features: -- Hundreds of full-color, anatomically correct images that accurately portray the spatial relationships as they occur in an actual human body-- A breakdown of each anatomical system and region of the body accompanied by illuminating text and detailed, clearly-explained, computer-modeled illustrations-- A fascinating CD-ROM offering fifteen full-color, interactive three-dimensional models and animations of the systems of the human body

Medicine Trail: The Life and Lessons of Gladys Tantaquidgeon


Melissa Jayne Fawcett - 2000
    In the remarkable life story of one of its most beloved matriarchs—100-year-old medicine woman Gladys Tantaquidgeon—Medicine Trail tells of the Mohegans' survival into this century.Blending autobiography and history, with traditional knowledge and ways of life, Medicine Trail presents a collage of events in Tantaquidgeon's life. We see her childhood spent learning Mohegan ceremonies and healing methods at the hands of her tribal grandmothers, and her Ivy League education and career in the white male-dominated field of anthropology. We also witness her travels to other Indian communities, acting as both an ambassador of her own tribe and an employee of the federal government's Bureau of Indian Affairs. Finally we see Tantaquidgeon's return to her beloved Mohegan Hill, where she cofounded America's oldest Indian-run museum, carrying on her life's commitment to good medicine and the cultural continuance and renewal of all Indian nations.Written in the Mohegan oral tradition, this book offers a unique insider's understanding of Mohegan and other Native American cultures while discussing the major policies and trends that have affected people throughout Indian Country in the twentieth century. A significant departure from traditional anthropological "as told to" American Indian autobiography, Medicine Trail represents a major contribution to anthropology, history, theology, women's studies, and Native American studies.

That Old-Time Religion


Jordan Maxwell - 2000
    It gives a complete run-down of the stellar, lunar, and solar evolution of our religious systems and contains new, exhaustive research on the gods and our beliefs. The book's main theme centers on the work of Jordan Maxwell. He has become widely known as one of the world's foremost experts on early mythological systems and their influence on both ancient and modern religions. The book also includes an interview with Dr. Alan Snow, referred to by Sydney Ohmarr as the "world's greatest authority on astrology and the Dead Sea Scrolls." Paul Tice also contributes three chapters, the last one explaining how we should revert to the original teachings of religious founders, including Jesus, before they had become corrupted by "organized religion." This book is illustrated, organized, and very comprehensive. Educate yourself with clear documented proof, and prepare to have your belief system shattered!

Rumba on the River: A History of the Popular Music of the Two Congos


Gary Stewart - 2000
    But when Joseph Kabasele and his African Jazz went chop for chop with O.K. Jazz and Bantous de la Capitale, music in Africa would never be the same. A sultry rumba washed in relentless waves across new nations springing up below the Sahara. The Western press would dub the sound soukous or rumba rock; most of Africa called in Congo music.Born in Kinshasa and Brazzaville at the end of World War II, Congon music matured as Africans fought to consolidate their hard-won independence. In addition to great musicians—Franco, Essous, Abeti, Tabu Ley, and youth bands like Zaiko Langa Langa—the cast of characters includes the conniving King Leopold II, the martyred Patrice Lumumba, corrupt dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, military strongman Denis Sassou Nguesso, heavyweight boxing champs George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, along with a Belgian baron and a clutch of enterprising Greek expatriates who pioneered the Congolese recording industry.Rumba on the River presents a snapshot of an era when the currents of tradition and modernization collided along the banks of the Congo. It is the story of twin capitals engulfed in political struggle and the vibrant new music that flowered amidst the ferment.For more information on the book, visit its other online home at rumbaontheriver.com—an impressive resource.

The Evolution Wars: A Guide to the Debates


Michael Ruse - 2000
    It focuses on the debates that have engaged, divided, and ultimately provoked scientists to ponder the origins of organisms—including humankind—paying regard to the nineteenth-century clash over the nature of classification and debates about the fossil record, genetics, and human nature. Much attention is paid to external factors and the underlying motives of scientists.In these pages you will meet Charles Darwin’s ebullient grandfather Erasmus, the contentious Frenchmen Georges Cuvier and Etienne Geoffroy Stain-Hillaire, new creationist Phillip Johnson, the brilliant J. B. S. Haldane, outspoken Richard Dawkins, and many other stars of the debates. The Evolution Wars explores the ten greatest controversies surrounding evolution in world history, with emphasis on recent times, including the infamous Scopes trial of the 1920s: the search for human origins and speculation about the “missing link,” spurred by the discovery of “Lucy;” the debate surrounding the new theory of paleontology proposed by Stephen Jay Gould; and the rise of teaching “creation science” in public school as a subject on par with evolution.Although the author takes a strong stand on the side of evolution, he also shows respect for dissenting viewpoints. Thus, the book is intellectually rewarding not only for evolutionists but also for opponents of evolution theory, especially those who want to see how one of the great ideas of Western civilization resonates through time, both within and beyond the scientific community.

Understanding Folk Religion: A Christian Response to Popular Beliefs and Practices


Paul G. Hiebert - 2000
    Provides a model for examining the beliefs of folk religions around the world and suggests biblical principles missionaries can use to deal with them.

Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Brazil


James N. Green - 2000
    Among these tropical fantasies is that of the uninhibited and licentious Brazilian homosexual, who expresses uncontrolled sexuality during wild Carnival festivities and is welcomed by a society that accepts fluid sexual identity. However, in Beyond Carnival, the first sweeping cultural history of male homosexuality in Brazil, James Green shatters these exotic myths and replaces them with a complex picture of the social obstacles that confront Brazilian homosexuals.Ranging from the late nineteenth century to the rise of a politicized gay and lesbian rights movement in the 1970s, Green's study focuses on male homosexual subcultures in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. He uncovers the stories of men coping with arrests and street violence, dealing with family restrictions, and resisting both a hostile medical profession and moralizing influences of the Church. Green also describes how these men have created vibrant subcultures with alternative support networks for maintaining romantic and sexual relationships and for surviving in an intolerant social environment. He then goes on to trace how urban parks, plazas, cinemas, and beaches are appropriated for same-sex erotic encounters, bringing us into the world of street cruising, male hustlers, and cross-dressing prostitutes.Through his creative use of police and medical records, newspapers, literature, newsletters, and extensive interviews, Green has woven a fascinating history, the first of its kind for Latin America, that will set the standard for future works. "Green brushes aside outworn cultural assumptions about Brazil's queer life to display its full glory, as well as the troubles which homophobia has sent its way. . . . This latest gem in Chicago's 'World of Desire' series offers a shimmering view of queer Brazilian life throughout the 20th century."—Kirkus ReviewsWinner of the 2000 Lambda Literary Awards' Emerging Scholar Award of the Monette/Horwitz TrustWinner of the 1999 Hubert Herring Award, Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies

Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking


Walter D. Mignolo - 2000
    In a shrinking world where sharp dichotomies, such as East/West and developing/developed, blur and shift, Walter Mignolo points to the inadequacy of current practice in the social sciences and area studies. He introduces the crucial notion of colonial difference into study of the modern colonial world. He also traces the emergence of new forms of knowledge, which he calls border thinking.Further, he expands the horizons of those debates already under way in postcolonial studies of Asia and Africa by dwelling in the genealogy of thoughts of South/Central America, the Caribbean, and Latino/as in the United States. His concept of border gnosis, or what is known from the perspective of an empire's borderlands, counters the tendency of occidentalist perspectives to dominate, and thus limit, understanding.The book is divided into three parts: the first chapter deals with epistemology and postcoloniality; the next three chapters deal with the geopolitics of knowledge; the last three deal with the languages and cultures of scholarship. Here the author reintroduces the analysis of civilization from the perspective of globalization and argues that, rather than one civilizing process dominated by the West, the continually emerging subaltern voices break down the dichotomies characteristic of any cultural imperialism. By underscoring the fractures between globalization and mundializacion, Mignolo shows the locations of emerging border epistemologies, and of post-occidental reason.In a new preface that discusses Local Histories/Global Designs as a dialogue with Hegel's Philosophy of History, Mignolo connects his argument with the unfolding of history in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar


David Graeber - 2000
    Anthropologist David Graeber arrived for fieldwork at the height of tensions attributed to a disastrous communal ordeal two years earlier. As Graeber uncovers the layers of historical, social, and cultural knowledge required to understand this event, he elaborates a new view of power, inequality, and the political role of narrative. Combining theoretical subtlety, a compelling narrative line, and vividly drawn characters, Lost People is a singular contribution to the anthropology of politics and the literature on ethnographic writing.

Designing Casinos To Dominate The Competition: The Friedman International Standards Of Casino Design


Bill Friedman - 2000
    Groundbreaking research into designing casinos to increase player counts, win, and profitability

Pure Society: From Darwin to Hitler


Andre Pichot - 2000
    In The Pure Society, André Pichot, one of France’s foremost specialists in the history of science, excavates the underside of the Darwinian legacy, where the notions of ‘race’ and heredity became powerful tools of malign political agendas and instruments of social oppression.Pichot examines the relationship between science, politics and ideology through an analysis of specific cases: from Nazism and the concentration camps to the various eugenicist research programmes launched or financed by eminent scientific organizations.Racist eugenic ideas were once prevalent among the scientific community, despite a patent lack of supporting evidence. As today’s scientists and writers applaud the advance of science, the egregious mistakes made along the way are too often forgotten. Now, with the mapping of the human genome and rapid advances in gene therapies, Pichot warns that biologists are increasingly emboldened to venture into the realms of public policy and politics. If moral philosophers abandon these fields, it is all too possible that the lights of a misguided science will resurrect the dream of a ‘pure society’.

The Atlas of World Archaeology


Paul G. Bahn - 2000
    By telling the human story chronologically and on both global and regional levels, the atlas provides a clear insight into how human society developed from a rough collection of nomadic hunter-gatherers and early farmers into highly organized empires and states.

Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers: Comparative Studies in the Sociology of Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge


David Turnbull - 2000
    He argues that all our differing ways of producing knowledge - including science - are messy, spatial and local. Every culture has its own ways of assembling local knowledge, thereby creating space thrugh the linking of people, practices and places. The spaces we inhabit and assemblages we work with are not as homogenous and coherent as our modernist perspectives have led us to believe - rather they are complex and heterogeneous motleys.

Spectacular Bodies: The Art and Science of the Human Body from Leonardo to Now


Martin Kemp - 2000
    Spectacular Bodies: The Art and Science of the Human Body from Leonardo da Vinci to Now is a ground-breaking exhibition with the potential to be a visual, cultural, and academic revelation with profound impact. The project encourages a new way of looking at visual objects from the territories that are conventionally labeled "medicine" and "art."The human body is an astounding feat of engineering. For centuries man has striven to understand its complexities, both artistically and anatomically, often resorting to human dissection. Illustrating the point at which medicine and art collide, Know Thyself brings together an extraordinary range of more than 250 objects from more than eighty medical and art museums and collections worldwide. Works of art from across the centuries include the anatomical drawings of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Dürer, and Stubbs, seventeenth-century portraits of surgeons and paintings by great masters including Rembrandt, Hogarth, Courbet, Gericault, and Degas. These works will be shown in a new context alongside medical instruments, prints, and drawings used in the medical study of the human face and body, and life-size anatomical models.Today, as forensic and medical sciences advance as never before—with the development of genetic fingerprinting, cryogenics, and designer babies—artists continue to find inspiration in the human body. Video installations, photography, and sculpture will present new perspectives on the historic material. The eight contemporary artists involved range from internationally celebrated video artists Bill Viola and Tony Oursler, to younger artists like Gerhard Lang, Christine Borland, and Marc Quinn.

Purchasing Power: Black Kids and American Consumer Culture


Elizabeth Chin - 2000
    An alternate image of the children emerges, one that puts practicality ahead of status in their purchasing decisions. On a twenty-dollar shopping spree with Chin, one boy has to choose between a walkie-talkie set and an X-Men figure. In one of the most painful moments of her research, Chin watches as Davy struggles with his decision. He finally takes the walkie-talkie set, a toy that might be shared with his younger brother.Through personal anecdotes and compelling stories ranging from topics such as Christmas and birthday gifts, shopping malls, Toys-R-Us, neighborhood convenience shops, school lunches, ethnically correct toys, and school supplies, Chin critically examines consumption as a medium through which social inequalities -- most notably of race, class, and gender -- are formed, experienced, imposed, and resisted. Along the way she acknowledges the profound constraints under which the poor and working class must struggle in their daily lives.

Pathways of Power: Building an Anthropology of the Modern World


Eric R. Wolf - 2000
    Wolf is a legacy of some of his most original work, with an insightful foreword by Aram Yengoyan. Of the essays, six have never been published and two have not appeared in English until now. Shortly before his death, Wolf prepared introductions to each section and individual pieces, as well as an intellectual autobiography that introduces the collection as a whole. Sydel Silverman, who completed the editing of the book, says in her preface, "He wanted this selection of his writings over the past half-century to serve as part of the history of how anthropology brought the study of complex societies and world systems into its purview."

Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals


Huston Smith - 2000
    This book takes a serious look at the use of psychedelic drugs as a means to achieve mystical union with the divine.

The Xenophobe's Guide to the Californians


Anthony Marais - 2000
    Frank, irreverent, funny--almost guaranteed to cure Xenophobia.

Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives Past And Present (Amistad Literary Series)


Henry Louis Gates Jr. - 2000
    Twenty years ago, Hurston's work was largely out-of-print, her literary legacy alive only to a tiny, devoted band of readers who were often forced to photocopy her works if they were to be taught ... Today her works are central to the canon of African-American, American, and Women's literatures ... The author of four novels, Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), and Seraph on the Suwanee (1948); two books of folklore -- Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse (1938); an autobiography, Dust Tracks On a Road (1942); and over 50 short stories, essays, and plays, Hurston was one of the most widely acclaimed Black authors for the two decades between 1925 and 1945.-- from the Preface by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Rainforest: Ancient Realm of the Pacific Northwest


Wade Davis - 2000
    Extending from northern California to southern Alaska, these immense and mysterious forests are home to a constellation of life that is unique on this planet.In this magnificent photographic collection, Graham Osborne's breathtaking images depict the many guises of the rainforest gnarled tree trunks dripping with moss, the spires of Douglas firs reaching into the sky, waterfalls tumbling over time-worn rocks, ice-encased fern fronds in winter, scarlet maple leaves littering the ground in autumn, a burst of wildflowers along a river bank in spring. Other photographs depict a tidepool rich with sea life, the Coast Mountains at sunset and sea stacks off the coast capped with old-growth trees.In his eloquent text, Wade Davis describes the scale and abundance of these rainforests, where redwoods reach nearly 120 metres and red cedars can be 6 metres or more across at the base. These and other giant conifers form the basis of one of the richest ecosystems in the world, where salmon and eagles proliferate, tiny seabirds lay their eggs in underground nests among the roots of ancient cedars, lungless salamanders in forest streams absorb oxygen through their skin, and creatures live on dew in the canopy of the forest and never touch the ground. Davis also discusses the role of the rainforest in Native culture and mourns the loss of much of this ancient forest through overcutting and other shortsighted forestry practices.

The Cultures of Native North Americans


Christian F. Feest - 2000
    Everyday life is portrayed - the totems, rituals, observances, shamans, holy clowns, hostilities, food gathering - in detail, and ethnologists explain the amazing diversity of culture.

Culture and Identity: The History, Theory and Practice of Psychological Anthropology


Charles Lindholm - 2000
    In this newly revised and updated edition, Lindholm provides a comprehensive introduction to psychological anthropology, deftly tracing the growth of the field, introducing the key theorists, and covering a broad range of contemporary topics such as identity, emotions, symbolic systems, and the psychology of groups.

Human Osteology: In Archaeology and Forensic Science


Margaret Cox - 2000
    It is well-illustrated, comprehensive in its coverage and is divided into six sections for ease of reference, encompassing such areas as palaeodemography, juvenile health and growth, disease and trauma, normal skeletal variation, biochemical and microscopic analyses and facial reconstruction. Each chapter is written by a recognised specialist in the field, and includes in-depth discussion of the reliability of methods, with appropriate references, and current and future research directions. It is essential reading for all students undertaking osteology as part of their studies and will also prove a valuable reference for forensic scientists, both in the field and the laboratory.

Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism


Jonathan Klawans - 2000
    In examining the evolution of ancient Jewish attitudes towards sin and defilement, Klawans sheds light on a fascinating but previously neglected topic.

Files: Law and Media Technology


Cornelia Vismann - 2000
    (What is not on file is not in the world.) Once files are reduced to the status of stylized icons on computer screens, the reign of paper files appears to be over. With the epoch of files coming to an end, we are free to examine its fundamental influence on Western institutions. From a media-theoretical point of view, subject, state, and law reveal themselves to be effects of specific record-keeping and filing practices. Files are not simply administrative tools; they mediate and process legal systems. The genealogy of the law described in Vismann's Files ranges from the work of the Roman magistrates to the concern over one's own file, as expressed in the context of the files kept by the East German State Security. The book concludes with a look at the computer architecture in which all the stacks, files, and registers that had already created order in medieval and early modern administrations make their reappearance.

Towards The African Renaissance: Essays In African Culture & Development, 1946 1960


Cheikh Anta Diop - 2000
    

Culture in Practice: Selected Essays


Marshall Sahlins - 2000
    More than a compilation, this book unfolds as an intellectual autobiography. Sahlins's reportage and reflections on the anti-war movement in 1964 and 1965 mark the intellectual development from earlier general studies of culture, economy, and human nature to the more historical and globally aware works on indigenous peoples, especially Pacific Islanders.Throughout these essays, Sahlins also engages the cultural specificity of the West, developing a critical account of the distinctive ways that we act in and understand the world. Culture in Practice includes a play / review of Robert Ardrey's sociobiology, essays on "native" consumption patterns of food and clothes in America and the West, explorations of how two thousand years of Western cosmology have affected our understanding of others, and ethnohistorical accounts of how cultural orders of Europeans and Pacific Islanders structured the historical experiences of both.Throughout this range of scholarly inquiries and critical commentaries, Sahlins offers his own way of thinking about the anthropological project. To transcend our native categories in order to understand how other peoples have been able historically to construct their own modes of existence -- even now, in the era of globalization -- is the great challenge of contemporary anthropology.

Art And Oracle: African Art And Rituals Of Divination


Alisa LaGamma - 2000
    It considers them for both their artistry and as mediums through which divine insights may be revealed.

Indian Country, God's Country: Native Americans And The National Parks


Philip Burnham - 2000
    He recounts how Indians were first removed from their traditional lands (which sub

The Heart of France: A Journey of Discovery


Catherine Calvert - 2000
    Filled with information on where to go and what to do, this insider's guide is as practical as it is dazzling.

Globe Trotting in Sandals: A Field Guide to Cultural Research


Carol V. McKinney - 2000
    The author was inspired by students and fieldworkers to write a practical field guide to cultural research for those who want to discover culture from an emic perspective. It is useful to ethnographers, development workers, sociologists, missionaries, and anyone who desires to study another culture in depth and covers a wide range of topics: ethics in cultural research, preparation for fieldwork, beginning fieldwork, participant observation, language learning, the ethnographic record, Informal interviews, and structured interviews. Carol McKinney has MA degrees in linguistics and in anthropology, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Southern Methodist University. She did fieldwork with the Bajju people in Nigeria and currently teaches at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics, Dallas, Texas. She is a member of the American Anthropological Association and the Association of Africanist Anthropologists.

Everyday Life in Southeast Asia


Kathleen M. Adams - 2000
    Encompassing both mainland and insular countries, these engaging essays describe personhood and identity; family and household organization; nation-states; religion; popular culture and the arts; the legacies of war and recovery; globalization; and the environment. Throughout, the focus is on the daily lives and experiences of ordinary people. Most of the essays are original to this volume, while a few are widely taught classics. All were chosen for their timeliness and interest, and are ideally suited for the classroom.

Marriage: A Sentence


Anne Waldman - 2000
    Marriage: A Sentence weaves together folklore, autobiographical detail a meditation on the first five days of the marriage of famed modernist dancer Nijinsky, memory, dream, politics, and the play between opposites and dualities. The work is based on the traditional form of the "haibun, " in which a prose-like poem is coupled with a condensed lyric poem of the same theme. The overall drive in this innovative work is an impulse to restore and maintain the spiritual life of marriage in all its diverse manifestations. Lyrical and "berserk, " this is Waldman's most exciting, energetic, and accessible work yet.

Eve's Seed: Biology, the Sexes, and the Course of History


Robert S. McElvaine - 2000
    McElvaine has broken ranks with his fellow historians and answered the call made by E.O. Wilson in Consilience, that humanistic scholars must begin to draw upon the natural sciences in order to fully understand the human condition. Bridging the gap between evolutionary biology and cultural history, McElvaine has created what he calls a biohistory. He begins with the assertion, by no means accepted by most historians, that history must begin with an understanding of the evolutionary heritage we carried out of the Stone Age, and that the time before writing, usually dismissed by historians as prehistory, saw the development of forces that have shaped the entire course of human history.

Letters and Autobiographical Writings


C. Wright Mills - 2000
    Wright Mills left a legacy of interdisciplinary and hard-hitting work including two books that changed the way many people viewed their lives and the structure of power in the United States: White Collar (1951) and The Power Elite (1956). Mills persistently challenged the status quo within his profession--as in The Sociological Imagination (1959)--and within his country, until his untimely death in 1962. This collection of letters and writings, edited by his daughters, allows readers to see behind Mills's public persona for the first time. Mills's letters to prominent figures--including Saul Alinsky, Daniel Bell, Lewis Coser, Carlos Fuentes, Hans Gerth, Irving Howe, Dwight MacDonald, Robert K. Merton, Ralph Miliband, William Miller, David Riesman, and Harvey Swados--are joined by his letters to family members, letter-essays to an imaginary friend in Russia, personal narratives by his daughters, and annotations drawing on published and unpublished material, including the FBI file on Mills.

An Archaeology of Natural Places


Richard Bradley - 2000
    It shows how established research on votive deposits, rock art and production sites can contribute to a more imaginative approach to the prehistoric landscape, and can even shed light on the origins of monumental architecture. The discussion is illustrated through a wide range of European examples, and three extended case studies.An Archaeology of Natural Places extends the range of landscape studies and makes the results of modern research accessible to a wider audience, including students and academics, field archaeologists, and those working in heritage management.

Manchus and Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republican China, 1861-1928


Edward J.M. Rhoads - 2000
    But given that the dynasty that was overthrown--the Qing--was that of a minority ethnic group that had ruled China's Han majority for nearly three centuries, and that the revolutionaries were overwhelmingly Han, to what extent was the revolution not only anti-monarchical, but also anti-Manchu?Edward Rhoads explores this provocative and complicated question in Manchus and Han, analyzing the evolution of the Manchus from a hereditary military caste (the "banner people") to a distinct ethnic group and then detailing the interplay and dialogue between the Manchu court and Han reformers that culminated in the dramatic changes of the early 20th century.Until now, many scholars have assumed that the Manchus had been assimilated into Han culture long before the 1911 Revolution and were no longer separate and distinguishable. But Rhoads demonstrates that in many ways Manchus remained an alien, privileged, and distinct group. Manchus and Han is a pathbreaking study that will forever change the way historians of China view the events leading to the fall of the Qing dynasty. Likewise, it will clarify for ethnologists the unique origin of the Manchus as an occupational caste and their shifting relationship with the Han, from border people to rulers to ruled.Winner of the Joseph Levenson Book Prize for Modern China, sponsored by The China and Inner Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies

Egyptian Mythology


Aude Gros de Beler - 2000
    It is to try to reach through multiple transpositions -- half human, half beast -- the divine nature that haunts all civilizations.The complex theology of the Egyptians is made clear in this book through surveys of: -- The stories and legends surrounding 50 Egyptian deities-- Their icons and representations-- Symbols, amulets, scepters, and crowns-- A lexicon of divinities-- Hieroglyphs: signs and determinativesThis volume, with its authoritative text, explanatory charts, chronologies, and handsome full-color illustrations is a must for all with an interest in the past, ancient civilizations, and man's quest for the divine throughout history.

Our Father Among the Saints Raphael Bishop of Brooklyn: Good Shepherd of the Lost Sheep in America (Saint Raphael Hawaweeny)


Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America - 2000
    Raphael (1860-1915) and the complete texts needed for the celebration of the services commemorating him in the Orthodox Church. The 68-page life is written by Fr. Andre Issa and edited by Fr. John Mack. It followes St. Raphael from his native Syria to Constantinople, Russia, and the United States. He was consecrated by the Russian missionary bishop St. Tikhon the Confessor, to assist him with the oversight of the Arabic-speaking Orthodox Christians in the U.S. and Canada. He was the first Orthodox bishop consecrated in North America. He founded 30 church temples, which are listed. He was glorified as a saint of the Orthodox Church in 2000. The liturgical material includes the Akolouthia of St. Raphael, that is, the proper hymn texts for the services of his feast day, the Akathist to St. Raphael, and a musical suppliment with western-type musical notation of Byzantine chant settings of many of the hymns. The hymns (presumably written by Bishop Basil) are in traditional liturgical English. The typography is clear, large, and well-suited to be used by clergy and chanters in services. Includes all the propers for vespers, litiya, orthros (matins), and the Divine Liturgy.

Narrative and the Cultural Construction of Illness and Healing


Cheryl Mattingly - 2000
    Stories of illness and healing are often arresting in their power, and they can illuminate aspects of practices and experiences surrounding illness that might otherwise be neglected. Recognizing the value of increased theoretical consciousness among those eliciting and analyzing narratives, these contributors explore narrative from a variety of perspectives.

Chronicle of Celtic Folk Customs: A Day-To-Day Guide to Celtic Folk Traditions


Brian Day - 2000
    Enjoy communal or family-oriented events, involving historical, religious, or folk traditions such as reenactments, preparation of foods or natural medicines, the performing arts, and games and crafts. Some of the origins are known; others remain shrouded in mystery, surviving only as habit or superstition. Don't miss out on a single festival; they're all annotated with dates, starting times, directions, and a description of what goes on. Revive old customs yourself, cooking customary meals and playing time-honored games. For easy reference, symbols appear beside each event, explaining whether it's a sing-along or a commemoration, a pagan or harvest ritual, a contest or sport, a fair or carnival. It's the only complete guide to Celtic folk customs that still go on today.

Forces of Change: A New View of Nature


Daniel B. BotkinGeorge P. Horse Capture - 2000
    In this single volume, more than 20 of the world's most innovative and visionary scientists, writers, and scholars -- including Stephen Jay Gould, John McPhee, Lynn Margulis, Daniel Botkin, and David Quammen -- illuminate the forces that define and continue to profoundly transform our planet and all of its inhabitants. Taken together, these essays represent a dramatic range of new views and understandings about nature that have emerged over the last century. Developed by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society, Forces of Change brings together for the first time the matchless resources of two world-renowned institutions in order to present a bold new vision of the world, which stresses the diversity, interrelatedness, and interdependence of all natural phenomena. In this vision the Earth can be viewed as a grand network of life-supporting forces operating within a single dynamic system. Powerfully punctuated by epic photographs, eloquent illustrations, and a wonderfully dynamic design, Forces of Change is at once highly accessible and deeply thought-provoking. Full of sidebars that lucidly unpack the latest field research, the essays take readers around the world -- from the peaks of the Himalaya to the mysterious depths of the sea, and from the Ladakh cultures of northern India to the A'ani and Assiniboine tribes of Montana. Published in conjunction with a new permanent exhibit program at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, Forces of Change is a timely and vitally important consideration of science and fate at the dawn of the 21st century.

Science in Translation: Movements of Knowledge through Cultures and Time


Scott L. Montgomery - 2000
    Montgomery explores the diverse roles that translation has played in the development of science from antiquity to the present—from the Arabic translations of Greek and Latin texts whose reintroduction to Europe was crucial to the Renaissance, to the origin and evolution of modern science in Japan."[A] book of great richness, as much for its examples as for its ideas, which keenly illustrate the development of knowledge across languages and epochs. It is a book to read and reread. Its subject is important; it is ours, it is our history." -André Clas, Meta: Journal des Traducteurs "[T]his book . . . seems to stand alone on the shelf. A good thing, therefore, that it is so full of good things, both in the content and the prose." —William R. Everdell, MAA Online"[A]n impressive work. . . . By reminding us of the role of diverse cultures in the elevation of science within a particular nation or civilization, the book makes a substantial contribution to the postmodern worldview that emphasizes multiculturalism." —Choice

Stability and Change in Guale Indian Pottery, A.D. 1300-1702


Rebecca Saunders - 2000
    By studying the ceramic traditions of the Guale Indians, Rebecca Saunders provides evidence of change in Native American lifeways from prehistory through European contact and the end of the Mission period.

Guarani Shamans of the Forest


Bradford P. Keeney - 2000
    The accompanying CD features their own voices singing healing songs and offering sacred prayers. Illustrated with color photographs, Guarani children’s drawings, and rare images of their most sacred objects, this book provides primary documentation of shamanistic practice never revealed before. An audio CD is also included.

Demography of the Dobe !Kung


Nancy Howell - 2000
    Using methods that are simple and fully illustrated, the author presents empirical descriptions of the fertility, mortality, and marriage patterns of the now famous !Kung hunter-gatherers.The !King "Bushman" people of the Kalahari desert in Africa occupy an anomalous position in the world of science. They have been selected for intensive study precisely because they are geographically, socially, and economically removed from modern, industrialized society, living in a sparsely settled and remote portion of an enormous semidesert. The !Kung maintain the language and culture of a fully develop hunting and gathering society with (until very recently) no dependence on cultivated plants, no domesticated animals other than the dog, no stratification system based on kinship or occupation, no power or authority structure extending further than the local bands composed of a few related families, no wage labor, no use of money, and no settled sites of occupation.At the same time, the !Kung have become well-known figures to students-both undergraduate and professional-of Western social science. The faces of !Kung informants gaze from the covers and the illustrations of many texts in anthropology and sociology.Why has all this attention been developed around the !Kung people? Part of the answer lies in the people themselves. The !Kung are a physically attractive people, with slender, graceful bodies and open small-featured faces that are appealing and photogenic. Their culture is simple and has its striking features. The struggle for subsistence, the click language, the emphasis on sharing and humility, the drama of the curing dances in which individuals go into trance and speak directly to spirits to cure sickness, and the pervasive humor, teasing, and playfulness of the !Kung style are all features that are relatively easy to convey and interesting to l earn about.This work covers areas such as marriage, fertility, disease, mortality, history, and the projected future of the !Kung. This book will be of interest to students of demographic studies, anthropology, and African studies.

Africa: Arts and Cultures


John Mack - 2000
    In Africa: Arts & Cultures, John Mack and an international team of artists and scholars draw on this world-famous collection to take us on a beautifully illustrated tour of African art and the various cultures that created it. Readers expecting the masks and wooden figures commonly collected a century ago will be surprised by the wide variety of art forms covered here, from a Tunisian wedding tunic, to a water bottle of ostrich eggshell from the San in southern Africa, to a multimedia monoprint made by a Nigerian artist in 1999. Moreover, in a rare departure, the book covers the art of all five regions of Africa, including Saharan Africa, with each geographical section introduced by a British Museum curator who provides historical and cultural context for the art from that region. But most important, this is a book of many voices. The art carries the voices of artists, ancient and modern, looking into their own culture and also out into the world around them. Commentaries on the art are written by historians, anthropologists, curators, artists--both insiders and outsiders whose breadth of experience dismantles easy notions of Africanness. Above all, there are African voices: African artists comment on their own work and that of the past; and scholars from African universities shed light on the objects of their specialty. By presenting art from across the continent, past and present, coupled with astute commentary by a worldwide cross-section of artists and scholars, Africa: Arts & Cultures offers an innovative approach that allows the reader to better appreciate African art in its totality.

History in Person: Enduring Struggles, Contentious Practice, Intimate Identities


Dorothy HollandBegoan Aretxaga - 2000
    In this volume, the authors bring their research to bear on enduring struggles and the practices of identity within those struggles. This collection of essays explores the innermost, generative aspects of subjects as social, cultural, and historical beings and raises serious questions about long-term conflicts and sustained identities in the world today. Nine ethnographers address such topics as the politically sexualized transformation of identities of women political prisoners in Northern Ireland; the changing character of political activism across generations in a Guatemala Mayan family; the cultural forms that mediate the struggles of working-class men on shop floors in England; and class and community struggles between the state and grassroots activists in New York.

The Year One: Art of the Ancient World East and West


Elizabeth Johnston Milleker - 2000
    Although some of the cultures flourishing in the Year One, such as that of Rome, are well known, others may be less familiar. In Europe, Celtic peoples excelled in intricate metalwork, and in Egypt a fascinating hybrid combining Greco-Roman and age-old Egyptian styles predominated. East of the Mediterranean, such wealthy centers of trade as Palmyra, Petra, the kingdoms of southern Arabia, and the mighty Parthian Empire produced a wide range of sculpture, ceramics, and precious objects that served both religious and luxury purposes as well as everyday uses. Continuing eastward from Parthia to what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northern India, a traveler in the Year One would have discovered the eclectic arts of the Kushan Empire, where a distinctive early Buddhist art sometimes incorporated influences from Greece and Rome.In East Asia, China's great empire under the Han dynasty was home to sophisticated arts in every medium; semi-nomadic peoples in northern China made metalwork ornaments, often to adorn the gear for their horses; and characteristic arts had begun to develop in Korea and Japan. The elegant bronzework produced in Southeast Asia testifies to a fertile artistic interchange in that region. Finally, in cultures across the Pacific Ocean in South America and Mesoamerica, powerful and expressive objects were made of stone, ceramic, and gold.More than 150 works of art that exemplify all these societies at the Year One are illustrated in color and fully explained in this volume. Historical summaries accompanied by maps briefly describe the nature of each culture and the flow of power and peoples during the period centering around the Year One. An introductory essay offers both an overview and an account of the startling degree to which the ancient world was an interconnected one, crisscrossed by intrepid traders and adventurers who journeyed both east and west to bring back coveted goods and tantalizing scraps of information about exotic lands.The works of art included here are almost all in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the book's authors are members of the museum's curatorial staff representing seven different departments. The catalogue is published to accompany the exhibition "The Year One: Art of the Ancient World East and West," held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from October 3, 2000, to January 14, 2001.

Art and Intimacy: How the Arts Began


Ellen Dissanayake - 2000
    In Art and Intimacy she argues for the joint evolutionary origin of art and intimacy, what we commonly call love.It all begins with the human trait of birthing immature and helpless infants. To ensure that mothers find their demanding babies worth caring for, humans evolved to be lovable and to attune themselves to others from the moment of birth. The ways in which mother and infant respond to each other are rhythmically patterned vocalizations and exaggerated face and body movements that Dissanayake calls rhythms and sensory modes.Rhythms and modes also give rise to the arts. Because humans are born predisposed to respond to and use rhythmic-modal signals, societies everywhere have elaborated them further as music, mime, dance, and display, in rituals which instill and reinforce valued cultural beliefs. Just as rhythms and modes coordinate and unify the mother-infant pair, in ceremonies they coordinate and unify members of a group.Today we humans live in environments very different from those of our ancestors. They used ceremonies (the arts) to address matters of serious concern, such as health, prosperity, and fecundity, that affected their survival. Now we tend to dismiss the arts, to see them as superfluous, only for an elite. But if we are biologically predisposed to participate in artlike behavior, then we actually need the arts. Even -- or perhaps especially -- in our fast-paced, sophisticated modern lives, the arts encourage us to show that we care about important things.

Mind the Gap: Hierarchies, Health, and Human Evolution


Richard G. Wilkinson - 2000
    Both rich and poor die younger in countries with the greatest inequalities in income. Countries such as the United States with big gaps between rich and poor have higher death rates than those with smaller gaps such as Sweden and Japan. Why? In this provocative book, Richard Wilkinson provides a novel Darwinian approach to the question.Wilkinson points out that inequality is new to our species: in our two-million-year history, human societies became hierarchical only about ten thousand years ago. Because our minds and bodies are adapted to a more egalitarian life, today's hierarchical structures may be considered unnatural. To people at the bottom of the heap, the world seems hostile and the stress is harmful. If you are not in control, you're at risk.This is a penetrating analysis of patterns of health and disease that has implications for social policy. Wilkinson concludes that rather than relying on more police, prisons, social workers, or doctors, we must tackle the corrosive social effects of income differences in our society.

"You Better Work!": Underground Dance Music in New York


Kai Fikentscher - 2000
    UDM not only predates and includes disco, but also constitutes a unique performance practice in the history of American social dance.Taking New York City as its geographic focus, "You Better Work!" shows how UDM functions in the lives of its DJs and dancers, and how it is used as the primary identifier of an urban subculture shaped essentially by the relationships between music, dance, and marginality. Kai Fikentscher goes beyond stereotypical images of club and disco to explore the cult and culture of the DJ, the turntable and vinyl recordings as musical instruments, and the vital relationship between music and dance at underground clubs. Including interviews, photographs, and an extensive discography, this ethnographic account tells the story of a celebration of collective marginality through music and dance

Views from the South: The Effects of Globalization and the WTO on Third World Countries


Sarah Anderson - 2000
    For all their talk of being dedicated to the welfare of the Third World, the WTO has damaged the economies of several countries and encouraged the growth of labor markets that more closely resemble sweat shops. Third World activists/scholars Martin Knor, Walden Bello, Vandana Shiva, Dot Keet, Sara Larrain, and Oronto Douglas examine the effects of the WTO and provide alternative agendas geared towards people, not profits.Highlights include: -- Demonstrations against globalization shut down the important World Trade Organization talks in Seattle last year; -- Machinations of WTO reported on daily; -- Jubilee 2000, the plan to cancel Third World debt, is gaining adherents and momemtum; -- Alternative agendas argue for a WTO that is responsive to the needs of the Third World, or no WTO at all.

Sacred Objects and Sacred Places: Preserving Tribal Traditions


Andrew Gulliford - 2000
    Complete with commentaries by native peoples, non-native curators, and archaeologists, this book discusses the repatriation of human remains, the curation and exhibition of sacred masks and medicine bundles, and key cultural compromises for preservation successes in protecting sacred places on private, state, and federal lands.The author traveled thousands of miles over a ten-year period to meet and interview tribal elders, visit sacred places, and discuss the power of sacred objects in order to present the essential debates surrounding tribal historic preservation. Without revealing the exact locations of sacred places (unless tribes have gone public with their cultural concerns), Gulliford discusses the cultural significance of tribal sacred sites and the ways in which they are being preserved. Some of the case studies included are the Wyoming Medicine Wheel, Devil's Tower National Monument, Mount Shasta in California, Mount Graham in Arizona, and the Sweet Grass Hills in Montana. Federal laws are reviewed in the context of tribal preservation programs, and tribal elders discuss specific cases of repatriation.Though the book describes numerous tribal tragedies and offers examples of cultural theft, Sacred Objects and Sacred Places affirms living traditions. It reveals how the resolution of these controversies in favor of native people will ensure their cultural continuity in a changing and increasingly complex world. The issues of returning human remains, curating sacred objects, and preserving tribal traditions are addressed to provide the reader with a full picture of Native Americans' struggles to keep their heritage alive.

The Pathan Unarmed: Opposition and Memory in the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement


Mukulika Banerjee - 2000
    Yet in the inter-war years there arose a Muslim movement, the Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of God), which adopted military forms of organizations and dress, but which also drew its inspiration from Gandhian principles of non-violent action and was dedicated to an Indian nationalism rather than communal separatism. Virtually erased from the national historiography of post-partition Pakistan, where they now reside, the ageing veterans of the movement are still highly respected by younger Pukhtun. This is an account of rank and file members of the Khudai Khidmatgar, describing why they joined, what they did, and how they perceived the ethics and aims of the movement. It attempts to answer the questions of how notoriously violent Pukhtun were converted to an ethic of non-violence. It finds the answer rooted in the transformation of older social structures, Islamic revisionism and the redefinition of the traditional code of honour. India: OUP; Pakistan: OUP Series Editors: Wendy James & N.J. Allen

Where There Are Mountains: An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians


Donald Edward Davis - 2000
    Incorporating a wide variety of disciplines in the natural and social sciences, the study draws information from several viewpoints and spans more than four hundred years of geological, ecological, anthropological, and historical development in the Appalachian region. The book begins with a description of the indigenous Mississippian culture in 1500 and ends with the destructive effects of industrial logging and dam building during the first three decades of the twentieth century.Donald Edward Davis discusses the degradation of the southern Appalachians on a number of levels, from the general effects of settlement and industry to the extinction of the American chestnut due to blight and logging in the early 1900s. This portrait of environmental destruction is echoed by the human struggle to survive in one of our nation's poorest areas. The farming, livestock raising, dam building, and pearl and logging industries that have gradually destroyed this region have also been the livelihood of the Appalachian people. The author explores the sometimes conflicting needs of humans and nature in the mountains while presenting impressive and comprehensive research on the increasingly threatened environment of the southern Appalachians.

The Problem of Evil: A Reader


Mark Larrimore - 2000
    Will fill a major gap in the publishing market. Provides primary source readings for courses on religion and evil. A key issue in religious thought - this book will change the way the subject is taught. Author is one of the brightest young religious philosophers in America.

Russia and Soul


Dale Pesmen - 2000
    Russian soul has historically appeared as a myth, a consoling fiction, and a trope of national and individual self-definition that drew romantic foreigners to Russia. Dale Pesmen shows that in the 1990s this soul was scorned, worshipped, and used to create, manipulate, and exploit cultural capital. Pesmen focuses on soul in part as what people chose to do and how they did it, especially practices considered definitive of Russians, such as hospitality, the use of alcoholic beverages, steam baths, Russian language, music, and suffering. Attempting to avoid narrow definitions of soul as a thing, Pesmen developed a new way of structuring ethnographic interviews.During her stay in a formerly closed military industrial city and surrounding villages, Pesmen spent time on public transportation and in kitchens, steam baths, vegetable gardens, shops, and workplaces. She uses stories from her fieldwork along with examples from the media and literature to introduce a phenomenology of russkaia dusha and of related American and other non-Russian metaphysical notions, exploring diverse elements in their makeup, examining and questioning the world created when people believe in the existence of such deep, vast, enigmatic, internal centers. Among theoretical issues she addresses are those of power, community, self, exchange, coherence, and morality. Pesmen's attention to dusha gives her a multifaceted perspective on Russian culture and society and informs her rich portrayal of life in a Russian city at a historically critical moment.

Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton


Anne M. Katzenberg - 2000
    Fascinating changes have occurred in the analysis of human skeletal and dental remains over the past few years for various reasons. Factors such as new technology, advances in the field of forensic anthropology, and heightened ethical concerns regarding the study of aboriginal peoples' remains where those people are no longer the dominant culture have emerged as significant themes for research and are examined in this comprehensive book. Organized into five parts with contributing chapters written by experts in the field of human skeletal biology, Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton delves into a variety of areas unique to literature. Part One covers theory and application, which leads to Part Two's discussion of morphological analyses of bone, teeth, and age changes. Following in Part Three are reviews of prehistoric health and disease. Part Four examines chemical and genetic analyses of hard tissues, and Part Five closes with coverage of quantitative methods and population studies. Such in-depth topics as how humans have regarded the dead over time and across cultures, the ethics of skeletal research, and the contributions and advances in research analysis are essential elements contained within this book. Other subjects covered are: * Dental morphology, highlighting new methods of characterizing tooth size and shape * Recent investigations of microstructural growth markers in dental tissues * Studies based on gross observations of bones, gross observations of teeth, and microscopic studies * Bone structure at the histological level and the factors that account for variation * Stable isotope analysis, trace element analysis, and the extraction and amplification of ancient DNA * Plus many other topics that contain the common thread of determining information about past peoples from their skeletal and dental remains Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton covers a scope of major topics in human skeletal biology and will be an indispensable research guide to biological anthropologists, osteologists, paleoanthropologists, and archaeologists.

Lest We Forget: The Melungeon Colony of Newman's Ridge


Jim Callahan - 2000
    

Mapping the World: A History of Exploration


Peter Whitfield - 2000
    

Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains?


Devon A. Mihesuah - 2000
    In this unprecedented volume, Native Americans and non-Native Americans within and beyond the academic community offer their views on repatriation and the ethical, political, legal, cultural, scholarly, and economic dimensions of this hotly debated issue. While historians and archaeologists debate continuing non-Native interests and obligations, Native American scholars speak to the key cultural issues embedded in their ancestral pasts. A variety of sometimes explosive case studies are considered, ranging from Kennewick Man to the repatriation of Zuni Ahayu:da. Also featured is a detailed discussion of the background, meaning, and applicability of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, as well as the text of the act itself.

Ethnobotany: A Reader


Paul E. Minnis - 2000
    Paul Minnis provides a general introduction; the authors of the section introductions are Catherine S. Foeler (ethnoecology), Cecil H. Brown (folk classification), Timothy Jones (foods and medicines), and Richard I. Ford (agriculture).Ethnobotany: A Reader is intended for use as a textbook in upper division undergraduate and graduate courses in economic botany, ethnobotany, and human ecology. The book brings together for the first time previously published journal articles that provide diverse perspectives on a wide variety of topics in ethnobotany. Contributors include: Janis B. Alcorn, M. Kat Anderson, Stephen B. Brush, Robert A. Bye, George F. Estabrook, David H. French, Eugene S. Hunn, Charles F. Hutchinson, Eric Mellink, Paul E. Minnis, Brian Morris, Gary P. Nabhan, Amadeo M. Rea, Karen L. Reichhardt, Jan Timbrook, Nancy J. Turner, and Robert A. Voeks.

Archaeology of Communities: A New World Perspective


Canuto Marcello - 2000
    This collection bridges the gap between studies of ancient societies and ancient households. The community is taken to represent more than a mere aggregation of households, it exists in part through shared identities, as well as frequent interaction and inter-household integration. Drawing on case studies which range in location from the Mississippi Valley to New Mexico, from the Southern Andes to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Madison County, Virginia, the book explores and discusses communities from a whole range of periods, from Pre-Columbian to the late Classic. Discussions of actual communities are reinforced by strong debate on, for example, the distinction between 'Imagined Community' and 'Natural Community.'

Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and Healing


Michael Winkelman - 2000
    Shamanic altered states of consciousness (ASC) are related to brain organization and processes, showing shamanism's concern with socioemotional and self functions of the paleomammalian brain and cognitive capacities based in presentational symbolism, metaphor, analogy, and mimesis. Integration of cross-cultural and neurological perspectives illustrates homologies which reveal the psychobiological basis of shamanism and soul journeys, guardian spirits, death and rebirth, and other universal forms of shamanic cognition.Shamanic contributions to sociocultural and cognitive evolution are examined. The integrative mode of consciousness produced by shamanic ASC is related to general brain functions. Specific psychophysiological functions of ASC and their variations cross-culturally are illustrated. Shamanic soul journey, possession, and meditative forms of consciousness are examined from phenomenological, neurological, and epistemological perspectives which reveal them to be innate forms of cognition and practices for manipulating perception, attention, cognition, emotion, self, and identity. Shamanistic healing involves physically and culturally mediated forms of adaptation to stress which are reinforced by procedures eliciting opioid release. Therapeutic effectiveness of shamanistic practices are illustrated by clinical research. Shamanistic healing includes procedures for altering physiological, psychological, and emotional responses. Contemporary spontaneous religious experiences and illness characterized as spiritual emergencies have shamanic roots and illustrate the continued relevance of shamanic paradigms.

Clifford Geertz: Culture Custom and Ethics


Fred Inglis - 2000
    In a lively and accessible introduction to his work, Fred Inglis situates Geertz's thought in the context of his life and times, reviewing its forty-year range. The book begins with a chapter-long biography, and places Geertz in the anthropological tradition from which he broke so decisively. This break was inspired by the work of Wittgenstein and Kenneth Burke, who provided Geertz with the lead to construct his theory of symbolic action. This theory was vigorously at odds with the dominant idiom of scientistic inquiry in the human sciences, and since then Geertz has led the practice of these sciences in quite a different direction. Geertz's progress is charted in detail by his field work in Java, Bali and Morocco, as well as his work in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. His two remarkable collections of essays, the Interpretation of Cultures and Local Knowledge, are enthusiastically summarized and criticized. The celebrated and controversial essay on the Balinese cock fight is defended against its critics, and in an extended conclusion, his account of the Balinese Theatre-State is, as Geertz suggests, proposed as a more adequate method for the combined study of culture and politics than the professionals' routine application of heavy-handed concepts such as 'power' and 'status'. This book provides a comprehensive overview of one of the most gripping, lucid and entertaining of contemporary thinkers, and in so doing, makes anthropology once again the popular science. It will be of great interest to anthropologists and to students and scholars of cultural studies.

Cosmology and Political Culture in Early China


Aihe Wang - 2000
    It crosses the disciplines of history, social anthropology, archaeology, and philosophy to illustrate how cosmological systems, particularly the Five Elements, shaped political culture. By focusing on dynamic change in early cosmology, the book undermines the notion that Chinese cosmology was homogenous and unchanging. By arguing that cosmology was intrinsic to power relations, it also challenges prevailing theories of political and intellectual history.

Metaphor in Context


Josef Stern - 2000
    Assuming that metaphor cannot be explained by or within semantics, they claim that metaphor has little, if anything, to teach us about semantic theory. In this book Josef Stern challenges these assumptions. He is concerned primarily with the question: Given the received conception of the form and goals of semantic theory, does metaphorical interpretation, in whole or part, fall within its scope? Specifically, he asks, what (if anything) does a speaker-hearer know as part of her semantic competence when she knows the interpretation of a metaphor?According to Stern, the answer to these questions lies in the systematic context-dependence of metaphorical interpretation. Drawing on a deep analogy between demonstratives, indexicals, and metaphors, Stern develops a formal theory of metaphorical meaning that underlies a speaker's ability to interpret a metaphor. With his semantics, he also addresses a variety of philosophical and linguistic issues raised by metaphor. These include the interpretive structure of complex extended metaphors, the cognitive significance of metaphors and their literal paraphrasability, the pictorial character of metaphors, the role of similarity and exemplification in metaphorical interpretation, metaphor-networks, dead metaphors, the relation of metaphors to other figures, and the dependence of metaphors on literal meanings. Unlike most metaphor theorists, however, who take these problems to be "sui generis" to metaphor, Stern subsumes them under the same rubric as other semantic facts that hold for nonmetaphorical language.

The Exemplary Society: Human Improvement, Social Control, and the Dangers of Modernity in China


Børge Bakken - 2000
    Although these reactions to modernity have a Chinese coloring, they are not exclusive to the Chinese culture. By describing the terra incognita of China, The Exemplary Society also describes something about ourselves.

Becoming Tsimshian: The Social Life of Names


Christopher F. Roth - 2000
    Human agency and social status reside in names rather than in the individuals who hold these names, and the politics of succession associated with names and name-taking rituals have been, and continue to be, at the center of Tsimshian life.Becoming Tsimshian examines the way in which names link members of a lineage to a past and to the places where that past unfolded. At traditional potlatch feasts, for example, collective social and symbolic behavior "gives the person to the name." Oral histories recounted at a potlatch describe the origins of the name, of the house lineage, and of the lineage's rights to territories, resources, and heraldic privileges. This ownership is renewed and recognized by successive generations, and the historical relationship to the land is remembered and recounted in the lineage's chronicles, or adawx.In investigating the different dimensions of the Tsimshian naming system, Christopher F. Roth draws extensively on recent literature, archival reference, and elders in Tsimshian communities. Becoming Tsimshian, which covers important themes in linguistic and cultural anthropology and ethnic studies, will be of great value to scholars in Native American studies and Northwest Coast anthropology, as well as in linguistics.

Living and Working with the New Medical Technologies: Intersections of Inquiry


Margaret M. Lock - 2000
    Drawing on ethnographic and historical case studies, the authors show how biomedical technologies are produced through the agencies of tools and techniques, scientists and doctors, funding bodies, patients, and the public. Despite shared concerns, the authors achieve no consensus about their research objectives, and deep epistemological divides clearly remain, making for provocative reading.

A Guide to Navajo Sandpaintings


Mark Bahti - 2000
    A Guide to Navajo Sandpaintings provides the best introduction to the religious images depicting ancient Navajo gods and heroes, designs created by Navajo medicine men as part of traditional curing ceremonies to help restore their patients to harmony.

Cultures Under Siege: Collective Violence and Trauma


Antonius C. G. M. Robben - 2000
    It targets the body, the psyche, and the socio-cultural order. How do people come to terms with these tragic events? This groundbreaking collection of essays by anthropologists, psychologists and psychoanalysts, drawing on field research in many different parts of the world, profits from an interdisciplinary dialogue. Providing provocative, at times deeply troubling, insights into the darker side of humanity, it also proposes new ways of understanding the terrible things that people are capable of doing to each other.

Globalization


Arjun Appadurai - 2000
    While including discussions about what globalization is and whether it is a meaningful term, the volume focuses in particular on the way that changing sites—local, regional, diasporic—are the scenes of emergent forms of sovereignty in which matters of style, sensibility, and ethos articulate new legalities and new kinds of violence. Seeking an alternative to the dead-end debate between those who see globalization as a phenomenon wholly without precedent and those who see it simply as modernization, imperialism, or global capitalism with a new face, the contributors seek to illuminate how space and time are transforming each other in special ways in the present era. They examine how this complex transformation involves changes in the situation of the nation, the state, and the city. While exploring distinct regions—China, Africa, South America, Europe—and representing different disciplines and genres—anthropology, literature, political science, sociology, music, cinema, photography—the contributors are concerned with both the political economy of location and the locations in which political economies are produced and transformed. A special strength of the collection is its concern with emergent styles of subjectivity, citizenship, and mobilization and with the transformations of state power through which market rationalities are distributed and embodied locally.Contributors. Arjun Appadurai, Jean François Bayart, Jérôme Bindé, Néstor García Canclini, Leo Ching, Steven Feld, Ralf D. Hotchkiss, Wu Hung, Andreas Huyssen, Boubacar Touré Mandémory, Achille Mbembe, Philipe Rekacewicz, Saskia Sassen, Fatu Kande Senghor, Seteney Shami, Anna Tsing, Zhang Zhen

Secrets Of The Stone Age: A Prehistoric Journey With Richard Rudgley


Richard Rudgley - 2000
    Illustrated with 150 color photos.

The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism And Other Essays


Roger Sandall - 2000
    In contrast, another tradition, represented by Karl Popper, Michael Polanyi, and Ernest Gellner, defends modern values and civil society. The Culture Cult discusses both sides of this divide between "culture" and "civilization," and between "closed" and "open" societies. The romantic insistence on the superiority of the primitive is increasingly grounded in a fictionalized picture of the past-a picture often created with the aid of well-meaning but misguided anthropologists. Such idealizations work to the detriment of the very people they are meant to help, for they isolate minorities from such undeniable benefits of modern society as literacy and health care, and discourage them from participating in modern life. Few will find comfort in The Culture Cult, but many will recognize a valuable criticism of currently popular social politics.