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Cultural anthropology

Totem and Taboo: Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics

Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology, Edition 3

One of the most important works of modern anthropology. Written against the backdrop of the student uprisings of the late 1960s, the book took seriously the revolutionary fervour of the times, but instead of seeking to destroy the rituals and symbols that can govern and oppress, Mary Douglas saw instead that if transformation were needed, it could only be made possible through better understanding. Expressed with clarity and dynamism, the passionate analysis which follows remains one of the most insightful and rewarding studies of human behaviour ever written.

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT

Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone)

NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa, 20th Anniversary Edition

Katherine A. Dettwyler

One of the most widely used ethnographies published in the last twenty
years, this Margaret Mead Award winner has been used as required reading
at more than 600 colleges and universities. This personal account by a
biocultural anthropologist illuminates not-soon-forgotten messages
involving the sobering aspects of fieldwork among malnourished children
in West Africa. With nutritional anthropology at its core, Dancing
Skeletons presents informal, engaging, and oftentimes dramatic stories
that relate the author’s experiences conducting research on infant
feeding and health in Mali. Through fascinating vignettes and honest,
vivid descriptions, Dettwyler explores such diverse topics as
ethnocentrism, culture shock, population control, breastfeeding, child
care, the meaning of disability and child death in different cultures,
female circumcision, women’s roles in patrilineal societies, the dangers
of fieldwork, and facing emotionally draining realities. Readers will
laugh and cry as they meet the author’s friends and informants, follow
her through a series of encounters with both peri-urban and rural
Bambara culture, and struggle with her as she attempts to reconcile her
very different roles as objective ethnographer, subjective friend, and
mother in the field. The 20th Anniversary Edition includes a 13-page
“Q&A with the Author” in which Dettwyler responds to typical
questions she has received individually from students who have been
assigned Dancing Skeletons as well as audience questions at lectures on
various campuses. The new 23-page “Update on Mali, 2013” chapter is a
factual update about economic and health conditions in Mali as well as a
brief summary of the recent political unrest.

The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology

Robert Wright

Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics--as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies. Illustrations.

Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction

John Monaghan

If you want to know what anthropology is, look at what anthropologists do. This Very Short Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology combines an accessible account of some of the disciplines guiding principles and methodology with abundant examples and illustrations of anthropologists at work. Peter Just and John Monaghan begin by discussing anthropologys most important contributions to modern thought: its investigation of culture as a distinctively human characteristic, its doctrine of cultural relativism, and its methodology of fieldwork and ethnography. They then examine specific ways in which social and cultural anthropology have advanced our understanding of human society and culture, drawing on examples from their own fieldwork. The book ends with an assessment of anthropologys present position, and a look forward to its likely future. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The Interpretation of Cultures: Edition 3

Clifford Geertz

One of the twentieth century's most influential books, this classic work of anthropology offers a groundbreaking exploration of what culture is

With The Interpretation of Cultures, the distinguished anthropologist Clifford Geertz developed the concept of thick description, and in so doing, he virtually rewrote the rules of his field. Culture, Geertz argues, does not drive human behavior. Rather, it is a web of symbols that can help us better understand what that behavior means. A thick description explains not only the behavior, but the context in which it occurs, and to describe something thickly, Geertz argues, is the fundamental role of the anthropologist.

Named one of the 100 most important books published since World War II by the Times Literary Supplement, The Interpretation of Cultures transformed how we think about others' cultures and our own. This definitive edition, with a foreword by Robert Darnton, remains an essential book for anthropologists, historians, and anyone else seeking to better understand human cultures.