Social Anthropology

To paraphrase the great sci-fi writer Stephen King: Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your heart, kill your darlings. Translation: stay on point and mercilessly avoid side stories and anecdotes. With much respect for Mr. King, The History of Man Series is precisely that, a great deal about all those little darlings, a style of writing termed “jumping off.”

Cut Throat is a compelling deep dive exposé of the wild journey taxidermy has taken from its toxic and inexpert origins to its fevered growth in popularity as scientific competition and society craved and demanded more in order to wonder and imagine the world beyond their lives in Europe. Cut throat continues on to its modern-day evolvement in collaboration with every level of crime and catastrophe. The motivation to keep the taxidermy machine grinding forward regardless of risk is staggering amounts of money, prestige and ego.

Published in 1925, The Gift is one of French sociologist Marcel Mauss's few non-collaborative works. In it, he elevates what might appear to be a simple gift from the status of innocent object to something that has the capacity to motivate people and define social relationships. The Gift analyzes cultures across the world and across time, with the way gifts are given and received working as a guide to understanding the rules and traditions of many different societies.

As late as the 1960s, the Wari' Indians of the western Amazonian rainforest ate the roasted flesh of their dead as an expression of compassion for the deceased and for his or her close relatives. By removing and transforming the corpse, Wari' death rites helped the bereaved kin accept their loss and go on with their lives. Drawing on the recollections of Wari' elders who participated in consuming the dead, this book presents one of the richest, most authoritative ethnographic accounts of funerary cannibalism ever recorded.

Une heure de promenade auditive dans les pas des anthropologues, en compagnie de Marie-Armelle Deguy, pour interroger nos sociétés humaines.

In the tradition of Hampton Sides and Simon Winchester comes a vital and timely work of historical adventure and reclamation by British archeological scholar Mike Pitts—a book that rewrites the popular yet flawed history of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and uses newly unearthed findings and documents to challenge the long-standing historical assumptions about the manmade ecological disaster that caused the island’s collapse.

Brunschweiger posits women have the right to be happy and, if they choose to, feel comfortable rejecting the societal conventional pressure of having children. Our author suggests that women and their partners will have more freedom and enjoyment if they are childfree. Brunschweiger doesn’t want humanity to go extinct as some may suggest; rather, she wants the Earth and its inhabitants to have an enjoyable and sustainable future.

Schlafen wie vor Tausenden von Jahren: Der Weg zu besserem Schlaf. Die Grundlagen für einen guten Schlaf haben sich seit Hunderttausenden von Jahren nicht verändert: Bewegung, Temperatur, Licht, Essen und Trinken spielen heute wie damals entscheidende Rollen. Doch der moderne Mensch hat es schwer, denn unser Lebensstil stellt uns vor große Herausforderungen: Unsere Nächte sind oft zu laut, zu warm, zu hell, und wir konsumieren zu viel und das Falsche. Um erholsamen Schlaf zu finden, müssen wir uns wieder auf den Ursprung des Schlafs besinnen.

There is the Cornwall Lamorna Ash knew as a child – the idyllic, folklore-rich place where she spent her summer holidays. Then there is the Cornwall she discovers when, feeling increasingly dislocated in London, she moves to Newlyn, a fishing town near Land’s End. This Cornwall is messier and harder; it doesn’t seem like a place that would welcome strangers. Before long, however, Lamorna finds herself on a week-long trawler trip with a crew of local fishermen, afforded a rare glimpse into their world, their warmth and their humour.

Over more than 25 years of teaching and research, Christine Desdemaines-Hugon has become an unrivaled expert in the cave art and artists of the Dordogne region. In Stepping-Stones she combines her expertise in both art and archaeology to convey an intimate understanding of the "cave experience." Her keen insights communicate not only the incomparable artistic value of these works but also the near-spiritual impact of viewing them for oneself.

When you think of evolution, the picture that most likely comes to mind is a straight-forward progression, the iconic illustration of a primate morphing into a proud, upright human being. But in reality, random events have played huge roles in determining the evolutionary histories of everything from lions to lobsters to humans. However, random genetic novelties are most likely to become fixed in small populations. It is mathematically unlikely that this will happen in large ones.

Генри Дженкинс, один из наиболее уважаемых американских аналитиков в области СМИ, в своей ключевой работе улавливает ту точку невозврата, находящуюся на границе двух миров, и пророчески определяет элементы, находящиеся у истока современной эпохи.

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?

In recent years, as companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.com have made genetic testing available across the globe, it has become relatively simple to find out where your ancestors came from. But acclaimed geneticist Pierre Zalloua believes that these test results have led to a dangerous oversimplification of what one’s genetic heritage means. People have conflated genetic ancestry with other ways of defining themselves such as “origin,” “ethnicity,” and even “race” but give no attention to the complexities that underlie these concepts.

Flight, Flight, Mimic is the first systematic study of deceptive mimicry in the context of wars. Deceptive mimicry—the manipulation of individual or group identity—includes passing off as a different individual, as a member of a group to which one does not belong, or, for a group, to "sign" its action as another group.

Эта книга — правдивый захватывающий рассказ о том, что представляла собой советская элита брежневской эпохи. Ее жизнь показана изнутри с предельной откровенностью человека независимого в суждениях и поступках. Щемящие воспоминания о детстве на Урале сменяются впечатлениями о Москве 1960-х, учебе в престижном институте. Сочными мазками автор рисует выдающихся деятелей эпохи, с которыми ей доводилось встречаться и общаться: Георгия Жукова и Михаила Шолохова, Екатерину Фурцеву и Павла Луспекаева, Юрия Гагарина и, конечно, самого Леонида Брежнева.

Una investigación fascinante sobre el origen de los humanos basada en los descubrimientos más recientes. Hace cincuenta mil años, el Homo sapiens no era la única especie humana en el mundo. También hubo neandertales en lo que ahora es Europa, en Oriente Próximo y en partes de Eurasia; hubo hobbits(H. floresiensis) en la isla indonesia de Flores; hubo denisovanos en Siberia y el este de Eurasia; y hubo H. luzonensis en Filipinas. Siempre nos hemos considerado únicos, pero en el tiempo evolutivo nuestra singularidad no existía hasta ayer y, aun así, ahora solo quedamos nosotros.

A global exploration of the Internet meme as an agent of pop culture, politics, protest, and propaganda on and offline and how they will save or destroy us all. Using social media-driven movements as her guide, technologist and digital media scholar An Xiao Mina unpacks the mechanics of memes and how they operate to reinforce, amplify, and shape today's politics.

An entertaining and enlightening exploration of why waste matters, this cultural history explores an often ignored subject matter and makes a compelling argument for a deeper understanding of human and animal waste. Approaching the subject from a variety of perspectives - evolutionary, ecological, and cultural - this examination shows how integral excrement is to biodiversity, agriculture, public health, food production and distribution, and global ecosystems.

Descubra la apasionante historia de los judíos. Un pueblo hostigado durante siglos y en eterno éxodo, que aún conserva su identidad religiosa. Conozca la sorprendente historia del pueblo que se considera especialmente elegido por Dios. Acompáñele desde su nacimiento y posterior estancia en Egipto, hasta su esplendor monárquico. Viva el exilio de las tribus de Israel y el dominio de otras civilizaciones sobre la judía. Camine por el Israel controlado por los romanos, que a pesar de la represión, logró conservar su identidad religiosa.