It covers the historic 2008 Presidential campaign and election while looking ahead to assess what the shifting political winds have in store for the future of the major political parties and Americans' political views.

    Using the latest genetic and anthropological data, Spencer Wells demonstrates that although humankind's decision to control our own food supply is what propelled us into the modern world, it had many downsides that we're just now beginning to recognize.

    Patton has created the most comprehensive, systematic and up-to-date review of qualitative methods available.Patton has retained and expanded upon the Exhibits that highlight and summarize major issues and guidelines, the summative sections, tables, and figures as well as the sage advice of the Sufi Master, Halcolm. This revision will help readers integrate and make sense of the great volume of qualitative works published in the past decade.

    And one of the things we are most curious about is how we came to be who we are--how we evolved over millions of years to become creatures capable of inquiring into our own evolution.In this lively and readable introduction, renowned anthropologist Ian Tattersall thoroughly examines both fossil and archaeological records to trace human evolution from the earliest beginnings of our zoological family, Hominidae, through the appearance of Homo sapiens to the AgriculturalRevolution. He begins with an accessible overview of evolutionary theory and then explores the major turning points in human evolution: the emergence of the genus Homo, the advantages of bipedalism, the birth of the big brain and symbolic thinking, Paleolithic and Neolithic tool making, and finallythe enormously consequential shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies 10,000 years ago. Focusing particularly on the pattern of events and innovations in human biological and cultural evolution, Tattersall offers illuminating commentary on a wide range of topics, including the earliestknown artistic expressions, ancient burial rites, the beginnings of language, the likely causes of Neanderthal extinction, the relationship between agriculture and Christianity, and the still unsolved mysteries of human consciousness.Complemented by a wealth of illustrations and written with the grace and accessibility for which Tattersall is widely admire, The World from Beginnings to 4000 BCE invites us to take a closer look at the strange and distant beings who, over the course of millions of years, would become us.

    This remarkable book is his odyssey, first written in 1542 as an official report to the king of Spain under the title La Relacion.

    He convincingly conveys the unique appeal and gifts of each of the traditions and reveals their hold on the human heart and imagination.

    A how-to guide to classroom inquiry that takes educators through the research process step by step, answering each critical question from where do I begin? through publishing the results.

    With more than 200 illustrations by the author.

    One such change was the Agricultural Revolution, with the domestication of plants and animals and a shift in survival strategies from hunting and gathering to farming and animal husbandry. Simultaneous with that was the Urban Revolution, the founding of cities. We discuss the current thinking on these revolutions in human existence and their relationship. Much of that discussion takes place in the context of the earliest city, ?atalh?y?k, and a second Neolithic foundation, Jericho. Both of these also provide material to explore the role of religion in the very earliest communities, to ask its role in city formation, and to explore the place of religious structures in city identity. Burial practices at the two cities also illuminate early ideas of property ownership and the definition of the family home.In the Bronze Age, cities grew most rapidly in civilizations founded in the great river valleys, from the Nile in Egypt, to the Euphrates in Mesopotamia, to the Indus in modern Pakistan and India. In these cities made of mud, we can trace elements of domestic life and civic spaces. Three of the cities, Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley and Kahun and Deir el-Medina in Egypt, have no recognizable public buildings. Yet the reasons for that negative evidence for civic life differ wildly, as do the structures of these societies. At Deir el-Medina, we encounter some of the oldest conclusive evidence for private enterprise in an ancient city. We also begin to see how social organization is reflected in city formation. The Sumerian city of Uruk, the first megacity in world history, provides the model for the monumentalization of religious structures and their integration in the civic space and government of the city. Finally, in the last of the Bronze Age mud-brick cities we will discuss, Amarna in Egypt, we are able to analyze city design as a deliberate means of changing the social structure of Egyptian society. This revolutionary city takes the lessons of Uruk on religion in the service of the state and develops them to reinforce the rule of the pharaoh, Akhenaten. Here, we also introduce the concept of the house as both an economic unit and a domestic space, an important indicator of the role of the house in the ancient city that we examine in Akrotiri, Athens, and Olynthus.In the four Mediterranean Bronze Age cities of Knossos, Akrotiri, Mycenae, and Tiryns, regular stone architecture makes an appearance. These cities, although they arise from different cultures, share some characteristics in common; we will discuss the idea and mechanisms of the spread of culture across the eastern Mediterranean. The theme of the role of religion continues to be an important one, and the size and placement of religious structures and their consequent meanings are debated with material from Knossos, Akrotiri, and Mycenae and comparisons back to ?atalh?y?k. Mycenae and Tiryns are contrasted with Uruk in their dedication of the high ground in the community, not to the gods, but to the king in the placement of his palace complex. This represents a heretofore unprecedented shift in the focus of urban design.Throughout the Neolithic and Bronze ages, it is possible to point out changes in urban forms, but the notion of “progress” in urban design?that is, reactions to what had come immediately before?is only truly visible with the multiple Greek foundations. We will examine a series of Greek cities?beginning with Athens in the 5th century B.C.; followed by Miletus, Olynthus, and Alexandria; and culminating at Pergamon?to illustrate what can be seen as progress in urban design. Athens in the 5th century has interesting correspondences to Uruk and Amarna. But at Miletus, a dramatic change in Greek urban design, Hippodamian planning, was invented and came to dominate the layout of many Greek and Roman cities with its variation of orthogonal planning. Inevitably, a new model of city design emerged that was anti-Hippodamian; the reasons for that are explored in one of the best examples of it, Pergamon.The examination of a number of Roman cities introduces in detail the issues of the benefits and challenges of urban life, particularly in the city of Rome itself. We also see remarkable variations in urban life in the Roman Empire, from Ostia in Italy to Karanis in Egypt. Rather than the standardized experience one might expect, we see regional variation and cultural identities that differ dramatically even across Roman North Africa.Finally, the last great city foundation of antiquity, Constantinople, encourages us to look backwards and chart its influences from the past and to look forward to its role as the model for the Middle Ages.