Social Anthropology

Nützliche Mitbewohnerinnen, Ekelobjekte oder verblüffende Wesen? An Spinnen scheiden sich die Geister. Von manchen bewundert für ihre kunstvollen Netze und das Archaische ihrer Erscheinung, von anderen gefürchtet. Aber warum ist das so? Dieses Buch dringt tief in das Beziehungsgeflecht von Spinnen und Menschen vor. Es zeigt den Einfluss der Spinnen auf unsere Sprache, Wissen, Träume und Geschichte. Warum verglich man Napoleon mit einer Spinne? Wie prägte die christliche Symbolik die Abneigung gegenüber Spinnen? Und wieso wurden gleich drei Weltraummissionen von Spinnen begleitet?

Warum wollen wir wie besessen bestimmte Dinge haben, sind aber gelangweilt, wenn wir sie bekommen? Warum verwandelt sich die Leidenschaft von Verliebten so schnell in Desinteresse? Die Antwort liegt in einem Hormon in unserem Gehirn: Dopamin. Es ist die Quelle unseres Verlangens und lässt uns für einen kurzen Nervenkitzel alles riskieren. Dabei ist es die Aussicht auf etwas Neues, die uns antreibt, nicht die Erfüllung. Dopamin ist der Grund, warum wir forschen und entdecken, aber auch der Ursprung von Verschwendung, Risiko und Sucht.

Because of rapidly aging populations, the number of people worldwide experiencing dementia is increasing and the projections are grim. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars invested in medical research, no effective treatment has been discovered for Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. The Alzheimer Conundrum exposes the predicaments embedded in current efforts to slow down or halt Alzheimer's disease through early detection of presymptomatic biological changes in healthy individuals.

UM UNS HERUM TOBT DER WAHNSiNN. ›Unter Wahnsinnigen‹ ist eine Zustandsbeschreibung unserer Zeit. Wie gerne würden wir leicht in Freund und Feind trennen, liken oder bashen. Aber so einfach ist der Mensch nicht. Schroeder folgt seinem Drang und seiner Neugier, das Böse zu verstehen. Auf dem Pfad des Bösen trifft er einen Holocaust-Leugner im Gefängnis, begegnet einem Sexualstraftäter auf seinem Weg nach draußen, erlebt einen Mann, der ein Doppelleben geführt hat, ist mit der Letzten Generation unterwegs und besucht NATO-Soldaten in Litauen, die sich auf den Krieg vorbereiten.

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.

Документально-приключенческий роман о радикальных политических экспериментах пиратов на Мадагаскаре XVII–XVIII веков. Цель романа "Пиратское Просвещение" — вернуть фокус антропологии и этнографии в их первоначальное русло, а именно — наблюдение за тем, как развивается культура и общество. Дэвид Гребер критикует европоцентричный подход, по которому "дикие народы" могут стать цивилизованными лишь под пристальным европейским надзором. На самом деле истоки либеральных и демократических идей лежат далеко за пределами "западной цивилизации".

人生を豊かにするための「教養入門」決定版

For most of human history, we were rural folk. Our daily lives were bound up with working the land, living within the rhythm of the seasons. And yet rural life is oddly invisible our historical records. The daily routine of the peasant, the farmer or the craftsperson could never compete with the glamour of city life, war and royal drama. Lives went unrecorded, stories untold. There is, though, one way in which we can learn about our rural past. The things we have left behind provide a connection that no document can match; physical artefacts are touchstones that breathe life into its history.

Che cos'è l'autorità nella Grecia antica? A lungo è stata negata la stessa esistenza di un termine greco che la definisca, e ci si è limitati a ricercare in quella cultura i sistemi di relazione sottesi al concetto romano di auctoritas. Prendendo le distanze da tale impostazione romano-centrica, l'autore individua le metafore culturali di cui i Greci si servono per elaborare la loro particolare nozione di auto rità, che non si presenta come qualità intrinseca dell'auctor, ma come "facoltà" concessa a qualcuno da una fonte esterna.

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.

Through a masterful combination of social commentary, investigative journalism, and autobiographical work, in The People of the Abyss, Jack London chronicles the living conditions and hardships endured by the impoverished residents in the East End of London, England, during the late 19th century.

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.

Coinage - it is one of the most successful and consistent technologies ever invented. Nothing else we still use in everyday life has a history quite like it. Look around at all the things that would bewilder a Greek, Roman, or Renaissance ancestor; then, dig into your purse or pocket for that one artifact that they would immediately recognize. Historian Frank L. Holt takes us on a journey through the history of numismatics, the study of coins - one of the oldest and most important contributions to the arts and humanities.

When the Smithsonian’s Hall of Physical Anthropology opened in 1965 it featured 160 Andean skulls affixed to a wall to visualize how the world’s human population had exploded since the birth of Christ. Through a history of Inca mummies, a preHispanic surgery called trepanation, and Andean crania like these, Empires of the Dead explains how “ancient Peruvians” became the single largest population in the Smithsonian and many other museums in Peru, the Americas, and beyond.

Der Code des Bösen. Es entlädt sich in spektakulären Verbrechen, abscheulichen Gräueltaten, Gewalt, Sadismus, Vergewaltigung, Schul-Amokläufen oder sogenannten "Familientragödien". Doch wie entsteht das Böse? Und: Existiert es in jedem von uns? Der Gerichtspsychiater Reinhard Haller hat sich auf die Suche nach den Wurzeln des Bösen begeben. Tausende Stunden saß er im Gefängnis Schwerstverbrechern gegenüber, nur mit Notizblock und Stift bewaffnet: Sexualmörder und Serienkiller, Terroristen, Räuber und Kinderschänder, alte NS-Verbrecher und junge Amokläufer.

The size and stability of the American middle class were once the envy of the world. But changes unleashed in the 1960s pitted Americans against one another politically in new and destructive ways. These battles continued to rage from that day to now, while everyone has fallen behind economically except the wealthy. Right-wing culture warriors blamed the decline on the moral shortcomings of "other" Americans - black people, feminists, gays, immigrants, union members - to court a fearful white working- and middle-class base with ever more bitter "us vs. them" politics.

"In formula: la geopolitica umana studia l’interazione tra collettività collocate nello spazio geografico calandosi nello sguardo altrui. Oggetto della sua analisi sono le aggregazioni umane, in ogni realizzazione storica. Tribù, póleis, comuni. Fino all’epoca corrente, dominata dagli Stati-nazione, dagli imperi. Mai i singoli individui. Tantomeno i leader. Ritenuti irrilevanti, mero prodotto della realtà che pensano di determinare. Nella migliore accezione, soggetti che incarnano lo spirito del tempo. "

Humans have used cannabis for thousands of years, since Neolithic peoples sought out its medicinal benefits. But for the past century, its use has been largely criminalized. Stigma around cannabis has made it difficult for people of all ages to get straightforward answers about how to minimize health risks related to cannabis consumption or to understand how the plant has shaped and continues to shape society today. In Weed: Cannabis Culture in the Americas, culture writer Caitlin Donohue crafts a comprehensive and thought-provoking review of cannabis in the Western Hemisphere.

With two out of every three Americans overweight or obese, scientists are studying how excess fat changes physical and mental health, demographers are calculating how it's shortening life spans, and economists are debating the impact it has on America's productivity and global competitiveness. But how weight affects intimacy and sexuality is barely discussed. Yet, it's a question of high importance for the tens of millions of Americans who are overweight or obese and having difficulty sexually and romantically.

In The Invented State, Emily Thorson argues that a problematic and understudied aspect of political misinformation reflects widespread public misperception about what the government does. Because much of public policy is invisible to the public, there is fertile ground for false beliefs to flourish, leading to what Thorson terms the "invented state": systematic misperceptions about public policy.