Showing titles in Anthropology

Can forests think? Do dogs dream? In this astonishing book, Eduardo Kohn challenges the very foundations of anthropology, calling into question our central assumptions about what it means to be human - and thus distinct from all other life forms. Based on four years of fieldwork among the Runa of Ecuador's Upper Amazon, Kohn draws on his rich ethnography to explore how Amazonians interact with the many creatures that inhabit one of the world's most complex ecosystems.

From a dysfunctional family who turn their mother's wake into a full-blown riot, to funeral crashers looking for free meals, to a horse-drawn hearse taking the dearly departed for the ride of their afterlife, these accounts from actual undertakers will have you laughing, thinking, and gasping in disbelief. A literal graveyard of wild coincidences, slapstick humor, and touching moments, Over Our Dead Bodies explores the lighter side of the dead, the living, and the lone undertaker who has to make it all go as planned - even if it doesn't.

Peter Hook, as co-founder of Joy Division and New Order, has been shaping the course of popular music for 30 years. He provided the propulsive bass guitar melodies of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' and the bestselling 12-inch single ever, 'Blue Monday' among many other songs.

The author of such acclaimed books as The Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth discusses the primitive roots of mythology, examining them in light of the most recent discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, and psychology.

This incisive history upends the complacency that confines anti-Judaism to the ideological extremes in the Western tradition. With deep learning and elegance, David Nirenberg shows how foundational anti-Judaism is to the history of the West. Questions of how we are Jewish and, more critically, how and why we are not have been churning within the Western imagination throughout its history. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; Christians and Muslims of every period; even the secularists of modernity have used Judaism in constructing their visions of the world.

A fascinating exploration of how a simple system used to measure and record wealth spawned a cultural revolution. Prepare to have your idea of accounting changed forever. 'The rise and metamorphosis of double-entry bookkeeping is one of history's best-kept secrets and most important untold tales. Through its logic we have let the planet go to ruin - and through its logic we now have a chance to avert that ruin.'

What is it that makes you distinct from me? Identity is a term much used but hard to define. For that very reason, it has long been a topic of fascination for philosophers but has been regarded with aversion by neuroscientists - until now. Susan Greenfield takes us on a journey in search of a biological interpretation of this most elusive of concepts, guiding us through the social and psychiatric perspectives and ultimately to the heart of the physical brain.

Just as Donald Trump's victorious campaign for the US presidency shocked the world, the seemingly sudden national prominence of white supremacists, xenophobes, militia leaders, and mysterious "alt-right" figures mystifies many. But the American extreme right has been growing steadily in number and influence since the 1990s with the rise of patriot militias. Following 9/11, conspiracy theorists found fresh life; and in virulent reaction to the first black US president, militant racists have come out of the woodwork.

This book explains why marriage and family are under attack in America and who is to gain from the popularity of the Socialist movement.

The story of the world's second-largest continent is as intricate as it is vast. Starting with prehistory and the fossils left behind in Ethiopia by the earliest humans, this book captures a narrative that traverses great ancient civilizations, from the Kingdom of Aksum to the empires of West Africa and sultanates of the East, and explores history-defining events such as the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the liberation of Nelson Mandela.

Ritual is perhaps the oldest, and certainly the most enigmatic, thread in human culture. Seemingly pointless ceremonies pervade every known society: from handshakes to hexes, hazings to parades, birthdays to graduations. And yet, though rituals exist in every culture and can persist nearly unchanged for centuries, their logic has remained a mystery until now. Today, a fearless new generation of anthropologists is venturing into this shadowy realm.

How to Be Animal writes a remarkable story of what it means to be human and argues that at the heart of our psychology is a profound struggle with being animal. As well as piecing together the mystery of how this psychology evolved, the book examines the wide-reaching ways in which it affects our lives, from our politics to the ways we distance ourselves from other species.

This audiobook narrated by Katherine Fenton gives a sweeping account of male nurturing, explaining how and why men are biologically transformed when they care for babies.

How four tools enabled humanity to control its destiny What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Listeners of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution - a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones - caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time.

What lies are we told when it comes to sex? What impossible expectations pollute our health, our happiness and our access to fundamental human rights? Bringing together deep research with intimate, real stories–from women who pay thousands for hymen reconstruction to men who fear their inexperience defines them–this is a revitalisation of sex education for the twenty-first century.

Ancient Futures is a lyrical and moving portrait of tradition and change in Ladakh, or “Little Tibet", as it was once known. The book is also an engaging critique of the global economy and a call for economic localization. When author Helena Norberg-Hodge first arrived in Ladakh in the 1970s, she found a pristine environment and a people who exhibited remarkable vitality and joy. Not long after, came economic growth and development, and Norberg-Hodge watched how a whole range of problems began to appear for the first time.

In 1955, on a visit to South Africa, Robert Ardrey became aware of the growing evidence that man had evolved on the African continent from carnivorous, predatory stock - ones who had also, long before man, achieved the use of weapons. A dramatist, Ardrey's interest in the African discoveries sprang less from purely scientific grounds than from the radical new light they cast on the eternal question: Why do we behave as we do? Are we naturally inclined towards war and weapons?

After the tragic loss of his younger brother, Lineen experienced walking's regenerative power firsthand. Grief-stricken and adrift, he set off on a 2,700-kilometre solo trek across the Himalayas. He walked for months until his legs ached and his feet blistered, and by the end of the expedition something had changed in him. He was stronger - not just physically but psychologically and emotionally. What had happened? What had given him this feeling of peace, joy even?

In all of Roman history there was never a more turbulent year than A.D. 69, the ill-omened "Year of the Three Emperors". By some miracle, the greatest historian of the age, Tacitus, was able to chronicle those momentous events in a work he called The History. In its pages are some of the most memorable events of Roman history described in some of the most intensely passionate prose ever devised.

Hygiene prevents the spread of disease and saves countless lives. But in recent decades, rather than safeguarding us from illness, an obsession with ‘cleanliness’ seems to have been having the opposite effect. As we are now starting to realise, our overuse of soap, sanitisers and untested, misleading skin-care products is doing untold damage to our skin’s vital microbial layer, which influences everything from acne, eczema and dry skin to how we smell.