Reviews (3)

A great social/behavioral science book
I've now read this book about 10 times over the past three years while teaching an evolution of human behavior course at the college where I'm employed. I was motivated to say a few supportive words about this book because I have become convinced of its groundbreaking importance in the scientific literature. After a decade of reading and studying evolutionary anthropology/psychology I find no other single book that so clearly and convincingly articulates the application of Darwinian thinking to modern human behavior. It is a perfect text to use with students as it not only teaches a wealth of information, but is also an excellent example of critical interpretation of data. Many of my students have commented on the power of this book to transform them into appreciative readers of science. From my own experience, it is one of a few books that transformed me from a standard social science undergraduate--mired in theoretical mush--into a more critical and thoughtful scholar. The other books that influenced me were by Sarah Hrdy, Don Symons, and later, Jarome Barkow et al. I encourage anyone interested in human behavior to read this book. Bring along a collegiate dictionary if your vocabulary is anything like that of my undergraduates!

Compelling analysis of the phenomenon of homicide.
Although nominally about the material designated in its title, this book is no mere collection of statistics, but contains wide-ranging discussions of evolutionary psychology, which Daly & Wilson use as the framework for an understanding of the phenomenon of homicide. So if the propensity to homicide is bred into the human race by millennia of natural selection, so also are other phenomena with which society struggles, like sexual harassment. I guess my point is that this book is about homicide and more. It's also lucid and even witty. It reads like a detective story, which indeed it is, but the culprit here is manifold rather than singular. The book will also furnish guidance to those who subscribe to the view that arrest, conviction, and incarceration will have only limited effects on the homicide rate, and that homicide be treated also as a public health problem. Daly & Wilson consider anthropological data from around the world and historical data as well to draw their inferences. In the most common type of murder the perpetrator and victim are young men who know each other and are in (ostensible) conflict over some trivial matter. But Daly & Wilson say that murder is the rare outcome of a common situation where two men face off against each other with each trying to appear more formidable and dangerous than the other. The (biological) reason they behave as they do is that such behavior causes them to acquire (or keep) control of the reproductive behavior of their women. Think about it: wimps, who allowed their women to be taken away from themselves, left no wimp genes in the gene pool. Of course there are a lot of other kinds of murders: children are occasionally murdered, sometimes by their natural parents, but more often by step-parents. It appears that there is a basis for the ever-popular myth (in many cultures, not just western European) of the evil step-parent. Husbands murder wives, but this seems to be a case of violence being used to control the wife's reproductive behavior, and the violence gets out of hand. When wives murder husbands (a rarer occurrence) it tends to be defensive in nature. Wonderful book! Very thought provoking.

pick and shovel
This book presents the view of evolucionist pychology. These authors have some excellent points, especially concerning social anthropology and some of Freud's misinformation, and anyone interested in psychology should not miss this book. However, once the authors have given an overview of behavior in the species homo sapiens, their theories cannot be translated to the individual. They have not taken into consideration the complexity of the human brain and the resultant behavior, especially the ability to symbolize. I felt like I was reading a book on how to assemble a Swiss watch using a pick and shovel ... Read more

Book Description

Praise for the Second Edition

"Croteau and Hoynes have written the clearest, most comprehensive, and useful textbook I’ve seen on the media, American Society, and their interconnections. As sage as it is thoroughgoinga, it serves as an encyclopedic reference book as well as a cogent summation of what scholars know. My congratulations to the authors."

-- Todd Gitlin, Columbia University

"The most comprehensive and insightful book on the role of media in life and society. If students, scholars, and all those concerned about our culture had to pick one book to enlighten and inform them, this would be the book."

-- George Gerbner, Bell Atlantic Professor of Telecommunication, Temple University

In a society saturated by mass media, from newspapers and magazines, television and radio, to digital video projects and the worldwide web, most students possess a great deal of media knowledge and experience before they ever enter the classroom. What they often lack, however, is a broader framework for understanding the relationship between media and society. Media/Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences provides that context and helps students develop skills for critically evaluating both conventional wisdom and one’s own assumptions about the social role of the media.

The first two editions of Media/Society introduced thousands of students to a sociologically informed analysis of the media process. The new Third Edition builds on this success with revised Internet resources, the latest data on the media industry, new examples from the independent media sector, and updated discussions of media policy, online media, and independent media. Media/Society is unique among media texts in that it offers:

• A sociological approach that examines overarching relationships between the various components of the media process—the industry, its products, audiences, technology, and the broader social world
• An integrated study of mass media that looks at media technologies, collective influences, and connections between mass media issues that are often treated as separate
• An examination of how economic and political constraints affect the media and how audiences actively construct their own interpretations of media messages

Media/Society: Industries, Images and Audiences, Third Edition engages the reader with accessible analyses that are historically grounded but draw upon current media debates such as regulation of the Internet, concentration of media ownership, portrayals of gays in the media, and the growth of global media. Media/Society an outstanding text for courses in mass media and sociology.

Reviews (1)

Shooting history on the wing
Media-disseminated messages flood our every waking second, affecting us in ways we often do not readily discern. Croteau and Hoynes take the reader on an exploration of these media forces in a sociological journey that walks then leaps from the birth of printed words for the masses to cyberspace for the individual. In the process, we learn a lot along the way. Not only about media, but, about ourselves. Unlike most college course texts in Media and Society (in sociology or journalism), "Media Society" is written in understandable English and is not ruefully Marxian in ideological slant. The work plays it straight down the middle. The authors' goal, to which they succeed, is to provide information that shows the complexity of social relationships in, around and through which information from all sources is sought and internalized by "receivers" then, through feedback, subtly affects the "senders" and subsequent messages as well. Surprisingly up-to-date in information, especially concerning the so-called New Media (a synthesis of current technologies, traditional entertainment programs-turned-political,and old news media). Croteau and Hoynes not only introduce the reader to the media mileau in society, they show how economics drive news coverage. At the same time they explain that media consolidations have not shrunk the markets as first feared, but have actually led--perhaps inadvertently--to an explosion of different, often smaller and more intimate media. The media pie, they attest, is growing bigger as the number of slices inexplicably increase. In later chapters, the authors do a commendable job acquainting the reader with communications theory, especially explaining how opinions are formed. My favorite chapter, given my predilections, are the chapters dealing with media and the political world (and the rest of the chapters in Part 4). The authors also enter the globalization fray by demonstrating not only how American pop culture is transforming traditional cultures (see Barber's McWorld v. Jihad for greater detail), but also how traditional cultures are influencing American pop culture in ways greater than we had intuited. Anyone interested in gaining a sense of how media is impacting his or her daily life and how we, as social beings, react to that impact, should certainly read this wonderful book. ... Read more

Book Description

AIDS is devastating many areas of sub-Saharan Africa.

* Over twelve million people in the region have died of AIDS in the past decade.

* Over 29.4 million people in the region are infected with HIV.

* Of the eleven people who contract HIV each minute in the world, ten live in sub-Saharan Africa.

* With no known cure and no vaccine as yet available, an estimated 60% of Africans under the age of eighteen today will be dead of AIDS before they reach 45 years of age.

* Most prevention programs have largely failed because the research behind them has focused primarily on "risk groups," behavioral change models, and flawed understandings of cultural practices.

HIV and AIDS in Africa: Beyond Epidemiology seeks to shift the predominant understandings generated by biomedical and epidemiological research, recognizing that HIV transmission in sub-Saharan Africa is a complex and regionally-specific phenomenon rooted in local economies, deepening poverty, migration, gender, war, global economies, and cultural politics. International contributors from across the social sciences further our understanding of AIDS by looking at the epidemic from angles often inadequately explored. Ultimately, the underlying message of every contributor to this book is that AIDS is not going to diminish in Africa until social, gender, and economic inequities are addressed in meaningful ways. ... Read more

Book Description

From Hannah Arendt’s "banality of evil" to Joseph Conrad’s "fascination of the abomination," humankind has struggled to make sense of human-upon-human violence. Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology is the only book of its kind available: a single volume exploration of social, literary, and philosophical theories of violence.

Edited by two of anthropology’s most passionate voices on this subject, Violence in War and Peace is a sweeping collection that looks at various concepts and modes of violence. Drawing from a remarkable range of sources, the editors juxtapose the routine violence of everyday life---what scholars Taussig and Benjamin have termed "terror as usual"---against the sudden outcropping of unexpected, extraordinary violence such as the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, the state violence of Argentina’s Dirty War, revolution, vigilante "justice," and organized criminal violence.

Despite the impulse to distance ourselves from such acts, Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois take care to remind us that concepts of violence and aggression have often failed to acknowledge symbolic and structural forms. Yet, the most violent acts often involve conduct that is socially permitted---even encouraged---rather than condemned as deviant. In Violence in War and Peace, the editors offer a thought-provoking tool for students and thinkers from all walks of life: an exploration of violence at the broadest levels: personal, social, and political. ... Read more

Book Description

Pathologies of Power uses harrowing stories of life-and death-in extreme situations to interrogate our understanding of human rights. Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist with twenty years of experience working in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, argues that promoting the social and economic rights of the world's poor is the most important human rights struggle of our times. With passionate eyewitness accounts from the prisons of Russia and the beleaguered villages of Haiti and Chiapas, this book links the lived experiences of individual victims to a broader analysis of structural violence. Farmer challenges conventional thinking within human rights circles and exposes the relationships between political and economic injustice, on one hand, and the suffering and illness of the powerless, on the other.Farmer shows that the same social forces that give rise to epidemic diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis also sculpt risk for human rights violations. He illustrates the ways that racism and gender inequality in the United States are embodied as disease and death. Yet this book is far from a hopeless inventory of abuse. Farmer's disturbing examples are linked to a guarded optimism that new medical and social technologies will develop in tandem with a more informed sense of social justice. Otherwise, he concludes, we will be guilty of managing social inequality rather than addressing structural violence. Farmer's urgent plea to think about human rights in the context of global public health and to consider critical issues of quality and access for the world's poor should be of fundamental concern to a world characterized by the bizarre proximity of surfeit and suffering. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Sobering
Reasoned yet impassioned dialogue on a variety of issues. Americans needn't feel left out of this either, as we are still the only industrialized country in the world without a universal health care system. geocities.com/singlepayerweb

Take Two Aspirin and Read This Book
Paul Farmer's "Pathologies of Power" will probably give you a headache, undoubtedly cause sleep disturbance, and very likely turn your stomach. In short, it will make you sick. But if you are well enough to read this and rich enough to consider purchasing the book, you are better off than the "disposable millions" whose lives he illuminates and honors in this indictment of global public health as-we-know-it. In this passionate and well-researched treatise, a world-class physician takes his own disciplines of medicine and anthropology to task for failing to ask the right questions. Then, noting that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable industry in the most affluent country in the world, he blows through its defense of those extraordinary profits like a gust of fresh air. A similarly searing deconstruction of health policymakers' rationale for "cost-effectiveness" and their elite argot of oppression reveals a blame-the-victim mentality that plagues the world and explains why, in the midst of unprecedented wealth, over 40 million Americans are without health insurance of any kind. And that is just the beginning.

While Farmer's hospital in Haiti, Zanmi Lasante, is not the only hospital to successfully combat the forces of poverty and disease in that country (Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in the Artibonite Valley predates Farmer's project by nearly three decades), his twenty-year presence in Central Haiti has resulted in a deep understanding of how structural violence on a global scale is a leading cause of disease and death among the world's poor, wherever they may live. Drawing on case-study examples from Haiti, South America, Cuba, Siberia, and the United States, he deftly illustrates why tuberculosis deaths, which he describes as 95 percent curable with inexpensive medication developed many years ago, "occur almost exclusively among the poor, whether they reside in the inner cities of the United Stated or in the poor counties of the Southern Hemisphere." Addressing the growing trend of multi-drug resistant strains of TB, Farmer discusses "tuberculosis as punishment" in the world's prison populations and delivers a wake-up call to those who might consider themselves immune from this, and other, infectious diseases.

In his critique of the commodification of healthcare, Farmer speaks of "orphan drugs" drugs that are simply not developed because they are needed by people who cannot pay for them, the sale of organs by those without resources to those with money, and the equally revolting multi-million dollar compensation packages of pharmaceutical company CEOs and managed care executives. In the midst of the catalog of inequity, he wonders why medical ethics courses in American schools of medicine focus so narrowly on the "quandaries of the fortunate"¯like whether or not to refuse a particular technology or whether or not to leave a loved one in a prolonged coma¯when millions are condemned to death or disease before they learn to walk. Even the World Health Organization (WHO) does not escape his critical analysis: "... the language of social injustice is increasingly absent from public health parlance," he notes.

Farmer is one of those remarkable doctors working in remote places who, somehow, finds the energy to look up from his daily workload and ponder the underlying causes of the suffering he treats. Furthermore, he writes about it in the brisk and engaging prose of an investigative reporter and brings provocative interdisciplinary voices of others¯Gustavo Gutiérrez, Paolo Freire, Cornel West, Amartya Sen, Jon Sobrino, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, to name a few ¯to bear on his march toward social justice. His ideas are radical, in part, because they are simple and based on an equitable distribution of health, regardless of wealth. Bringing the observe, judge, act methodology of liberation theology to bear on global public health, Farmer advocates a "preferential option" for the poor, a redefinition of medicine as a healing profession (as opposed to medicine-as-commerce), and a new understanding of healthcare as a basic human right, for all.

Toward the end of a chapter entitled "Listening for Prophetic Voices," Farmer distills his argument into a call to action: "We thus find ourselves at a crossroads: healthcare can be considered a commodity to be sold, or it can be considered a basic social right. It cannot comfortably be considered both of these at the same time. This, I believe, is the great drama of medicine at the start of this century. And this is the choice before all people of faith and good will in theses dangerous times."

Pathologies of Power is a lucid and alarming statement from a fearless physician. It speaks truth to power and it speaks for the destitute sick. Take two aspirin, lie down, and read the book. In spite of its consciousness-raising side effects, this may be the beginning of a cure for what ails the world.

3.5 stars
I greatly respect Dr. Farmer's work and have followed Partners In Health's efforts in Haiti over the last several years. While this book has substantive significance in its attempts to discuss several public health and human rights crises in their social, economic, and political contexts; I think it fails to make a cohesive point or tell a cohesive story in the way that a book (rather than a collection of essays) demands. As a public health and human rights worker, I understand where Farmer was trying to go with his writing but I don't think he actually gets there in a coherent way. Perhaps he should have focused only on one health issue or country in order to more fully flesh out his thesis.

I do recommend this book as well as a visit to the Partners in Health web site at www.pih.org.

Insightful Investigation
Dr. Farmer's investigation is a powerful explanation of how the structure of society and power distribution decides who succeeds, fails, gets sick, and stays healthy. His book not only reveals the ugly roots of how inequality is sustained and is oppressive, but by doing so, also outlines the principles for a humane way forward.

St. Paul Farmer
Dr. Farmer argues that, at the very least, access to health care should be a basic human right, especially if we are to uphold the belief that all human lives are equally valuable. Pathologies of Power is an indictment on the social structures that exist to keep the destitute poor of the world just as they are - destitute, impoverished, and without hope. While the powers-that-be make excuses, Dr. Farmer provides solutions that are, indeed, quite simple. His passion for his struggle to provide health care to the poorest of the poor is matched only by his disdain for the social inequities that perpetuate the structural violence inflicted upon the least fortunate of the world. It is heartening to know that there are a few compassionates, amongst the millions of complacent, that work so tirelessly to effect change that is so desperately needed. Hopefully this book will serve as a wake-up call for the rest of us. ... Read more

Book Description

Like the heroic land that is its subject, James Michener's POLAND teems with vivid events and unforgettble characters. In the sweeping span of eight tumultuous centuries, three Polish families live out their destinies and the drama of a nation--in the grand tradition of a great James Michener saga.
"POLAND is a monumental effort, a magnificent guide to a better understanding of the country's tribulations."
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
... Read more

Reviews (34)

Truly great historical novel
There's only one thing that could describe the reviews by Hecht. Hate. And one remarkably similar to hate propagated by the Nazis. James Michener's book proved to be well researched and objective. The novel has an added credibility of being written by an American author, one with no apparent agenda to vilify or glorify any one group of people. This is further reinforced by his portrayal of the scandalous behavior of Polish magnates that resulted in Poland being torn apart by the neighboring powers. For anyone to think that Michener somehow favored Polish view of history is simply ridiculous. His reliance on facts, however, is commendable. "Poland" is an incredibly interesting, educating and enjoyable read, one not deserving the hateful scrutiny of the reviewer mentioned previously. It is such malignity that drives the terrible events with which human history is scared.

A Rousing read and remarkable historically accurate.
I read this book after I had just finsihed a university course on the history of Poland. I was shocked at how historically accurate this work was. Michener definetly did his homework on this one. Even better it is extremely well-written. Despite the fact that I knew the history and therefore the outcomes of many of the events he was describing the detail which he gives to his character's lives as you follow a family history through time is riveting. I could barely put it down. If you can only read one of his books I highly recommend Poland.

Stunningly Historical Inaccuracy- but Great Fiction
I rate this book with 5 stars because it is Great Fiction. It is not written by a historian and is not meant to be taken seriously as historical accurate account. It is written by a popular travel fiction writer. Remember this throughout the book. Take Micheners sources into account and the era of the ruling communists at the time he wrote this. He wanted to make the Polish people (under communist occupation and abroad) fell good.

Another reviewer from WA, USA noticed Michener's Stunningly Historical Inaccuracy at the Polish Conquest of Ukraine in the 1920's. The whole book by Michener is full of these inaccuracies, but after all, do not forget this is fiction, not accuracy.

Michener only echoed the Phantastic Fiction that was spoonfed to him by his hosts.

For some actual Polish History read "A Concise History of Poland" by Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzik.

Great read...but stunningly historically inaccurate.
I loved reading the book. But when I got to the section around 1920, I was shocked! Michener (probably based on being brainwashed by his Polish nationalist informants and simply not checking his facts) has Russia invading Poland!

Virtually all historians agree it was the other way around. To quote Isaac Babel:

Newly constituted as an independent nation after World War I, Poland sought to take advantage of the nascent Soviet state's upheaval to expand eastward, restoring its 1772 borders and its former stature...Jozef Pilsudski, leading the Poles, articulated the Polish mission both as a fulfillment of his country's historical destiny and as a crusade to save European civilization from the alien disease of Bolshevism....

Hostilities had begun in February 1919, in the wake of German withdrawal (after the November 1918 armistice) from the Russian-Polish borderlands...The Poles quickly acquired the upper hand. In April they took Vilna; in August, Minsk.... Polish troops kept moving, taking the Latvian city of Dvinsk in January 1920.

But many accounts date the beginning of the war to April of that year, when Poland moved deep into the Ukraine. On 6 May the Polish Army (aided by Ukrainian nationalist troops) took Kiev from the Reds."

In fact, in the treaty of Riga signed in 1921, Poland literally doubled its size, having unilaterally seized territory, some 80,000 square kilometers, from the Soviet Union.

Now that I see how wildly inaccurate Michener's storytelling is in this instance, I wonder about all the rest.

Be careful -- fun reading, but perhaps very poor history.

Must Read
Excellent book. Couldn't put it down once I started reading it. For those interested in European history, I highly recommend this. ... Read more

Book Description

These are four of Rudolf Steiner’s best-loved lectures. In-cluded are “Practical Training in Thought,” “Overcoming Nervousness,” “Facing Karma,” and “The Four Temperaments.” With its many practical exercises, mantras, and meditations, this book is a fundamental introduction for anyone entering the path of inner development. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

One of his easier books to understand!
I've read several of his books, this is one of my favorite ones. Very insightful, comprehensive and full of useful advice. I've reread this one several times. Simply one of the best! ... Read more

Book Description

From handshakes and toasts to chant and genuflection, ritual pervades our social interactions and religious practices. Still, few of us could identify all of our daily and festal ritual behaviors, much less explain them to an outsider. Similarly, because of the variety of activities that qualify as ritual and their many contradictory yet, in many ways, equally legitimate interpretations, ritual seems to elude any systematic historical and comparative scrutiny. In this book, Catherine Bell offers a practical introduction to ritual practice and its study; she surveys the most influential theories of religion and ritual, the major categories of ritual activity, and the key debates that have shaped our understanding of ritualism. Bell refuses to nail down ritual with any one definition or understanding. Instead, her purpose is to reveal how definitions emerge and evolve and to help us become more familiar with the interplay of tradition, exigency, and self- expression that goes into constructing this complex social medium. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great but not for the first timer in this field...
While Bell provides what is a strong comprehensive look at ritual, this book is not for anyone who is trying to break into this. It is not nightstand reading! As an upper-level undergrad in religious studies, I found the book readable, challenging, and thoroughly engaging. However, there are some important principles that should be understood first--particularly sociological and psychological theories in religion. I would recommend that the thoughtful reader with some exposure to the study of religion and world religions accompany this text with Ronald Grimes' anthology _Readings in Ritual Studies._ In it you will find some of the foundational ideas as well as many of the scholars who inform Bell's study of ritual. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The expeditions of Magellan, Columbus, and Lewis and Clark have been well documented and are instantly familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in world history. But the average person is likely unaware of the U.S. Exploring Expedition or its mercurial leader, Charles Wilkes. This despite the numerous accomplishments and lasting legacy of the massive four-year project that involved six ships and hundreds of men. The "Ex. Ex.," as it came to be known, is credited with the discovery of Antarctica, the first accurate charting of what is now Oregon and Washington, the retrieval of thousands of new species of life, and the foundation of the Smithsonian Institution. Yet when Wilkes returned, instead of being hailed as a great man of science or a national hero, he was shunned by the President, ignored by the press, and was the subject of so much ill will on the part of his men that he was ultimately put on trial for a variety of offenses. In the portrayal presented in Nathaniel Philbrick's Sea of Glory, Wilkes is a passionate man, brash and enthusiastic, driven by seemingly impossible goals, many of which he actually accomplished. But he's also a petty, mean-spirited loner, egotistical enough to unilaterally give himself a promotion in the middle of the expedition. Without Wilkes' singularity of purpose, it's hard to imagine the mission being as successful as it was, but it's also hard to conceive a personality more poorly suited to leadership than the near-universally-despised Wilkes. Philbrick also skillfully reveals the insecurity behind the tyranny in excerpts from letters to Wilkes' wife, Jane. The accounts of the expedition's adventures are at various times exhilarating and tragic as the crew scales the volcanoes of Hawaii, becomes involved in a bloody war with Fijian natives, and struggles merely to stay alive while at the same time not killing Wilkes. Philbrick's compelling narrative and meticulous research provide a vivid picture of the triumphs and hardships of the exploration age. --John Moe ... Read more

Reviews (16)

The U.S. Ex. Ex.
I always enjoy reading a book about American History that tells me something about a topic of which I am completely ignorant. Before reading this book, I had no knowledge about the 1838-1842 circumnavigation of the globe that this expedition conducted. The author has taken a long-forgotten journey from our country's past and brought it to the attention of a new century, and for that he should be thanked. There were many benefits garnered from this trip, such as the founding of the Smithsonian, which is quite important to our nation. The narrative of the journey, and the various personalities involved, is extremely lively and interesting, and makes for fascinating reading. Discovering the almost unlimited power which the captain of a sailing ship had over his crew is quite chilling, and very foreign to those of us who today believe in individual freedom. The writing is first rate, and it moves along quite readily. If you want to learn something new about your country, and have a good read while doing it, I highly recommend this book.

All the joy of recovered history
Philbrick is undoubtedly one of the finest maritime writers working today. I thought his previous book, on the whaleship Essex, was excellent, but in the breadth of the tale told, Sea of Glory surpasses it. This book deserves wide attention, not the least for helping restore to history a fascinating tale of exploration that has simply vanished from America's history books: A four year journey round the globe, in which the existence of the Antarctic continent is proven, many islands of the South Sea and the Pacific Northwest surveyed for the first time and charted, and thousands upon thousands of plant, animal, and ethnographic specimens collected, which became the founding collections of the Smithsonian. Indeed, Philbrick makes clear that many US scientific organizations owe their start to the "US Ex Ex."

In addition to US Ex Ex's accomplishments, Philbrick tells of many, sometimes deadly, adventures -- ships wrecked and battered by storms, encounters with island natives, even a very short "war."

Finally, there is the all important human element: One reason the US Ex Ex vanished was the way the journey ended -- in courts martial and wrangling. The commander of the expedition, Wilkes, managed to turn his many young officers from ardent admirers into bitter enemies, through his fierce ambitions, paranoia, and other deep personal flaws -- which in turn may have colored Melville's portrait of Captain Ahab in Moby Dick.

I'm very glad to have found this book. Be sure to look through the excellent bibliography as well, which is a goldmine of sources for more information on US expeditions and early science.

Richie's Picks: SEA OF GLORY
"There ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them." --Mark Twain

"By this time the sound of the dragging anchors had become 'almost an incessant peal,' Dana wrote, 'announcing that the dreaded crisis was fast approaching.' "They had drifted to within a ship's length of the reef. One of the anchors finally caught and, for a few brief moments, the Relief hovered in the wild surge of the breakers. '[T]he ship rose and fell a few times with the swell,' Dana wrote, 'and then rose and careened as if half mad: her decks were deluged with the sweeping waves, which poured in torrents down the hatches.' The strain on the cables proved too much, and at 11:30 P.M. the anchor chain parted. '[W]e found ourselves,' Long wrote, 'at God's mercy.' "

I am a major fan of Joy Hakim's American History series, THE HISTORY OF US. But looking back through it today, I am surprised. While Ms. Hakim devotes five pages to an excellent biographical introduction of Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838), the author of THE NEW AMERICAN PRACTICAL NAVIGATOR, there is not a single word in her entire series about Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, the man who was undoubtedly Bowditch's most important student.

Hakim is not alone in having ignored Wilkes. I telephoned an eighth-grade student to check on our middle school's American History text. Again, no mention of Lieutenant Wilkes.

Despite my own love for American History, if I've ever heard mention of Wilkes, it has certainly slipped my mind. And yet, as the commander of the U.S. Exploring Expedition (referred to as the Ex. Ex.), Wilkes led an incredibly ambitious and successful four-year journey that ranks right up there with that of Lewis and Clark.

"By any measure, the achievements of the Expedition would be extraordinary. After four years at sea, after losing two ships and twenty-eight officers and men, the Expedition logged 87,000 miles, surveyed 280 Pacific Islands, and created 180 charts--some of which were still being used as late as World War II. The Expedition also mapped 800 miles of coastline in the Pacific Northwest and 1,500 miles of the icebound Antarctic coast. Just as important would be its contribution to the rise of science in America. The thousands of specimens and artifacts amassed by the Expedition's scientists would become the foundation of the collections of the Smithsonian Institution. Indeed, without the Ex. Ex., there might never have been a national museum in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Botanical Garden, the U.S. Hydrographic Office, and the Naval Observatory all owe their existence, in varying degrees, to the Expedition."

So why is the groundbreaking work of the Expedition so widely ignored? That is the question that Nathaniel Philbrick both asks and provides answers for in his latest, thrilling volume of nonfiction, SEA OF GLORY.

The reason for the Ex. Ex. having become a complex and controversial subject that is ignored by American history textbooks has to do with Wilkes. On one hand, Wilkes was one heck of a history-making marine surveyor, and one bold, daring, and determined hombre when it came to exploring uncharted seas and supervising collection of information and specimens. But he was an equally crazy, abusive, and evil SOB when it came to leading men and dealing with natives, Brits, superiors, subordinates, Friends, Romans, Countryman...(You get the idea.) And since what comes around goes around, his return to America after four years of such phenomenal successes was cause for a court-martial rather than a rolling out of the red carpet.

The trouble began not long after the Expedition set sail.

"All his life, Wilkes had cast himself as the righteous outsider who must battle against the forces of ignorance and ineptitude to achieve what others thought could never be done. He was the antithesis of the 'team player,' and as he had proven...more than a decade before, he was capable of turning on the people closest to him if he thought it served his best interests...
"A year into the Expedition, Wilkes had essentially re-created the environment in which he had always operated: it was he, and he alone, against the rest of the world. It was a turbulent, hurtful, and ultimately wasteful way to conduct one's life, but it was the only way he knew how to do it."

Nathaniel Philbrick once again showcases his ability to meld primary source materials with commentary and background in a manner that grabs and holds readers. It is incredibly exciting to travel with these nineteenth century Americans as they dodge icebergs, challenge dangerous straits, and climb Mauna Kea. It is truly fascinating to read about the disparities between what had at that time previously been reported--even in the well-traveled Atlantic--and that which Wilkes surveyed. As the author points out, "As the Ex. Ex. was proving, exploration was as much about discovering what did not exist as it was about finding something new." The book is immersed in the rich mathematical and scientific background information that is necessary to really understand the Expedition's procedures and accomplishments.

But what is also thought-provoking--particularly in the context of today's communications revolution where we can be in touch with anyone, anywhere (including Mars) at a moment's notice--is that a vital and pivotal U.S. government operation and its commander could operate for four long years without word one passing between Wilkes and either his military superiors or civilian government officials in Washington, D.C. (Then again I suppose, considering testimony in the current highly publicized hearings going on, some might say that, "Things never change.")

SEA OF GLORY reveals a significant chunk of American History that--as with the many aficionados of the Lewis and Clark Trail--will have readers wanting to visit Pacific Islands, Antarctic peninsulas, and Pacific Northwest landmarks. Thanks to Nathaniel Philbrick, the U.S. Exploring Expedition and its remarkable-yet-flawed leader will be given its due in our nation's history.

Important and entertaining US maritime history
One of the many questions Sea of Glory raises is how could this amazing four-year voyage have rated so little attention from historians? Herein lies Philbrick's greatest achievement, telling the story. And what a story it is. Over three year's worth of sea faring adventures when much of the Pacific Ocean (then more commonly known as the South Seas) and its isles were uncharted and the Antarctic was still not a geographic fact.
While the EX EX had numerous encounters with natives, both those predisposed to violence such as in Fiji, and those who welcomed foreign sailors with open arms (to say the least) such as the Tahitians, it was the expedition's scientific achievements that were most notable.
Much of their findings influenced much of what the United States was to know about the Pacific, Antarctic and numerous islands, peoples, plants and animals.
That in itself is a not for an enriching even entertaining book. But as the TV ads say: there's more! The story of the expedition's leader, Charles Wilkes, is a fascinating character study. Philbrick gives Wilkes his due for his surveying skills and his necessarily aggressive leadership. But Wilkes had an uncanny ability to annoy, hurt and offend his underlings and had a tendency to capricious decisions and frequently folding under pressure. These intrigues add considerable spice to the story. As he did with his earlier masterpiece, "Heart of Sea" Philbrick expertly draws all characters, from the primary to the supporting cast. Keeping up with all of them was a difficult task that the author was certainly up to.
Sea of Glory is not just a wonderful addition to American and maritime history; it fills a void in it. I'm sure I join countless other readers in eagerly awaiting Philbrick's next work.

A very compelling telling
People interested in American History should not pass this up! A re-discovery of our past and fascination in the exploration of the Pacific and Antarctica lost to the discovery of gold in California is vividly read by Dennis Boutsikaris.

A telling of the turbulent leadership of Charles Wilkes is revealed as well as the Naval politics of the pre-civil war. ... Read more

Book Description

Armed with extraordinary new discoveries about our genes, acclaimed science writer Matt Ridley turns his attention to the nature-versus-nurture debate in a thoughtful book about the roots of human behavior.

Ridley recounts the hundred years' war between the partisans of nature and nurture to explain how this paradoxical creature, the human being, can be simultaneously free-willed and motivated by instinct and culture. With the decoding of the human genome, we now know that genes not only predetermine the broad structure of the brain, they also absorb formative experiences, react to social cues, and even run memory. They are consequences as well as causes of the will.

Reviews (1)

Great Book - But DON'T BUY IT!!!! (read this review first)
I have really enjoyed each and every Matt Ridley book and "The Agile Gene" is no exception - but for the fact that it is an identical 'word-for-word' copy of his book titled "Nature Via Nurture". I'm not sure why a publisher would release the same book under a different title (there is one very small notice on the left front of the cover stating "Previously published as Nature Via Nurture"), but I'm more upset that it's not a new Matt Ridley book than by being out the money for the price of the book and the special two day delivery.

So...great book, just don't shell out any money if you already read "Nature Via Nurture". ... Read more

Reviews (7)

A Chapter at a Time
This is a looong read but it is well worth it in the end. I found that taking this book chapter by chapter was the best way to read, because sometimes you find yourself reading the chapter's twice. Wolf offers an insighful and opinionated view of European and Imperial history. I would advise anyone who is interested in history and modern political relations, its a great overview of well....everything that happened in European history involving trade, imperialism, and colonial relations.

An interconnected history
Wolf breaks the paradigm that the world ever was full of isolated pockets of civilized people void of contact with others. By tracing routes of fur trade, slave trade, early movements of people, materials and ideas, Wolf examines the world before Europe "civilized" the world. He is able to show how contact with European traders change the lifestyles of groups of people who already had fully developed cultural, linguistic and political traditions. How trade, bureaucracy, military force and violence influenced the people with whom the traders contacted illustrates the fact that "globalization" is hardly a recent phenomenon.
This provides the background for understanding the current changes in the transition of ideas in the world. Without Wolf's excellent work, it becomes possible to get lulled into the trap that the "Internet" changed the world. In fact, it did not provide contact for people where none previously existed. Electronic media does provide a new medium by which the transfer of ideas can take place. It changes the nature of that transmission, but it does not create a transmission where none previously existed.

History and Power
Europe and the People Without History describes the very process by which capitalism has spread and permeated throughout the world. Wolf's narrative starts from AD 1400 and ends in the 20th century. He traces the historical events associated with the expansion of European commerce, paying extra attention to the people ignored by traditional history, those who either resisted to the death or toiled under the drudgery of capitalism.

Instead of viewing nations or "tribes" (a problematic term in anthropology) as isolated and coherent entities, Wolf is concerned with the international and intercultural processes that is continually creating new nations, new cultures, new identities. In turn Wolf warns against the reification of complex processes or elements into one seemingly unified term. I find this perspective especially valuable. Generalizations and broad categories must be used with caution, since words and concepts merely reflect aspects of reality, but they themselves are not to be equated with reality.

Another merit of Wolf is his world systems approach. He analyzes world history as a system in which disparate and distant social groups can have important influence on each other. This analytic method rejects the notion that countries are independent and self-contained systems, but instead they are interrelatetd in the larger global processes of change.

Finally, readers should pay extra attention to the concluding chapter. It discusses the nature of ideology, about how it is formed and how it is perpetuated. Wolf reminds the readers that common terms and categories are not innocent words - they are the offspring of constant construction, deconstruction, and redefinition of power relations.

In short, Europe and the People without History will impact the minds of those who have not been exposed to the history of capitalist and colonial expansion. It will force people living in developed nations to reconsider the historical source of their affluency and wealth. Despite the dispassionate and objective tone used in Wolf's analysis of global history, I cannot help but read the book as a somber epitaph to the silent victims of colonization and globalization.

- Malcolm Godwin

I think that this is my favorite book
The rather odd name of this book refers to the tendency of many social scientists to evaluate non-western peoples without considering that they have a unique history that needs to be taken into account if we are to gain any understanding of them. Not surprisingly the author attempts remedy this shortcoming in a sweeping analysis of the last 600 years of human history. If you are a person who like myself would like to come to understand why human affairs are what they are today I recommend this book as the single best starting point. This is not to say that I think Wolf is right about everything that he writes, no work of this scope will achieve that, but he covers the field and knows the sources. The bibliography is a great resource, though a little dated. Ralph J. Pledger, Ph.D.

Very Interesting but Intermittantly Tendentious
This interesting book by a well known anthropologist is aimed at describing and analyzing the transformations wrought by the expansion of European commerce and capitalism in the last few centuries. Wolf is concerned particularly at reconstructing the often ignored history of indigenous groups generally ignored or seen as passive participants in conventional, 'eurocentric', accounts. He also wishes to remind anthropologists that social features are often the product of highly individual historic processes and not necessarily intrinsic or universal features of human existence. Finally, he hopes to escape the sterility of concentrating on abstract social processes by emphasizing the historical nature of events and the key role of political and especially, basic features of economic organization. With respect to these goals, this is a very successful book. The coverage of the transformation of societies all over the world by European expansion is excellent and the product of much judicious reading. In this context, Wolf shows well that a number of classic examples of ethnographic inquiry involve societies whose essential forms were shaped by encounters with European commercial and capitalist expansion. These facts destroy the many of the traditional inferences drawn from ethnographic analysis. This book has some significant flaws. It contains some tendentious chapters and paragraphs devoted to theorizing. Like much social science theorizing, these sections contain a good bit of commonsense dressed up in dense language and a fair amount of argumentation that will be meaningful only to those involved in these recondite debates. Wolf draws heavily on the Marxist (Marxian) tradition. This has pros and cons. On the one hand, this is very appropriate as Wolf's theme is really an explication of Marx's great insight into the discontinuity introduced into human history by capitalism. In this sense, the use of Marxist categories of analysis is successful and has real analytic power. Wolf is careful also not to exaggerate the power of these ideas. On the other hand, in the later parts of the book, his reliance of Marxist ideas such as the surplus value idea and his analysis of politics in a Marxist manner is superficial, unconvincing, and glosses over many, many key issues. Still, this is a very good book and if you are looking for books that attempt a literally global view of history, this is an excellent starting point. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

"Will doubtless inform future discussion and debate"
For nearly 100 years anthropologists have researched issues of ethnicity, race, and cultural diversity in the US, and this edited collection, an official publication of the American Anthropological Association, demonstrates anthropology's continuing commitment to research in this area. Contributors represent all major subfields of anthropology and cover a wide variety of topics. Of special note are the chapters by Alan H. Goodman, Thomas C. Patterson, Michael Winkelman, Marie D. Vesperi, and Ruben Mendoza. Mendoza's chapter, which examines social values underlying popular museum exhibits, is outstanding. A number of chapters are replete with jargon and assume familiarity with postmodernism, neo-Marxism, and advanced literary theory. Nevertheless, this volume greatly enriches understanding of cultural differences and will doubtless inform future discussion and debate. Recommended. Stephen D. Glazier, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Published in Choice, vol. 39, no. 3 (November 2001) ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Needs a 21st-century filter
Edgar Schein recommended this book, so I read it. I'm glad I did. Goffman is fascinated by what happens when people engage one another face-to-face, and the essays in this book synthesize many years of observation, research and deep thinking on this topic. There is much to learn in the book, and it's even well-written and filled with interesting anecdotes that illustrate his points.

However, the book was written at a time when psychologists made no distinction between the social actiions of men and women. In this book, "a person" is always male. It's easy to see that the book was written long before Deborah Tannen came along, and it suffers from that. ... Read more

Book Description

The contributors to this volume examine how things are sold and traded in a variety of social and cultural settings, both present and past. Bridging the disciplines of social history, cultural anthropology, and economics, the volume marks a major step in our understanding of the cultural basis of economic life and the sociology of culture. ... Read more

Reviews (42)

No more monkeying with history
It's one of the defining scenes of our century. The young science teacher, John Scopes, is chased from his class by a rabid bunch of anti-evolutionists. He's thrown in jail and a show trial is set up to punish him. Then Clarence Darrow arrives ... the white knight for science and rationalism. In a brilliant oration he destroys the older fundamentalist, William Jennings Bryan, exposing him as a fool and winning the case, making the world free for evolution. One small problem.

The truth is nothing like that happy story. What you're thinking of is the plot of Inheirit the Wind, a second-rate movie that used the Scopes trial to dramatize the McCarthy hearings. Spencer Tracy and Gene Kelley weren't in Dayton for the trial, and what really happened was far from black and white.

But in the hands of Edward Larson, it's also far more interesting. Larson's book, Summer for the Gods is a brialliantly reasoned look at what led to the trial, the trial itself, and its continuing impact on society. (Okay, on American society ... but it's still interesting.) Larson manages a tremendously difficult task: he manages to be unbiased and dispassionate without becoming dull. And he walks the line masterfully. There were times when I couldn't honestly say whose "side" Larson was on ... which is kind of the point. I read a lot of history, and it's very seldom I come across something that's so even-handed. Which would be a triumph in itself, even if it weren't so darn readable. For the rest of the review, visit my web page at exn.net/printedmatter

A lively and timely account of the Scopes Trial
Like many of my generation, I learned of the Scopes "Monkey" Trial through the Lawrence and Lee play, "Inherit the Wind." Edward J. Larson's Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion is a fine and lively historical account of the trial and its aftermath. Winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize, Larson's book sets the battle between fundamentalist religion and the "modern" science of Darwinism in both an historical and cultural context. In the 1920s, several states attempted to pass anti-evolution laws, and Tennessee finally succeeded in 1925. Thereafter, the ACLU found a test plaintiff in teacher John Scopes, and a test venue in the sleepy town of Dayton, Tennessee, which hoped to use the trial to "get on the map" and increase tourism. Using newspaper accounts, memoirs, and other contemporaneous sources, Larson displays in vivid detail both the seriousness and naivete of the battle between religion and science, William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow. He also argues, convincingly for me, that the trial did not -- contrary to the Lawrence and Lee depiction -- leave Bryan a broken man (although he died within a week of the verdict). Going beyond the trial and its immediate aftermath, the final section of this book examines how later historians and writers -- including Lawrence and Lee -- have interpreted and often mis-interpreted the trial for later generations. In particular, Larson argues that "Inherit the Wind", like the Arthur Miller classic "The Crucible", must be viewed as both a product of and attack upon the McCarthy era of the 1950's. This is an insightful and enjoyable account.

Good book, but favors humanistic view
Sadly, it is only too true that in modern-day America, to get a truly lucid view of facts and history one often has to look to secular scholars. In the past many of the greatest works, in any sphere of life or calling, were authored by men of biblical faith. For example, Issac Newton, a prolific writer on matters of science (and acknowledged as the greatest scientist who ever lived) actually devoted more words to commentary on the Bible. Therefore if one desires a truly comprehensive and fairly accurate account of the "Trial of the Century", this is a good book. No question about it.

Nevertheless one must be prepared for the subtle bias throughout this work, in favor of the pro-humanist, pro-evolution cabal. For example this book contains a full-page photograph of Clarence Darrow (who was, after all, only a lawyer) and no photograph at all of William Jennings Bryan, who was one of the greatest statesman (regardless of one's opinion of the man) of his time.

Dr. Larson correctly points out that the trial was part of the struggle between a "majoritarian" vs. "individual rights" interpretation of our constitution. The indivdual rights interpretation is dominant today, but that doesn't necessarily make it right. You wouldn't know that from reading this book.

As I write this review I have on my desk the results of an ABC News poll, released 02/15/04, that demonstrated 61% of all Americans believe God created the world in six literal 24-hour days. Read this book for a good and accurate account of the Scopes trial but don't be lured in by Mr. Larson's patronizing insinuations that any American who believes in the Biblical account of creation is not only half-witted, but in the minority. Facts (like those revealed in the ABC poll) are troublesome things Dr. Larson.

History as Myth, a careful reinterpretation
I come to the book as part of a self-directed study of the issues involved in the creation-evolution-design debate(CED). I deeply enjoy history and appreciate good historical writing. This book is such good, informative history. The author is a careful, balanced, objective-striving historian, and i like his writing. His intention is to dissipate the myths that have grown up around the Scopes trial via a careful reinterpretation of the events and personalities that were involved. To a very great extent he does so. My only sadness in reading the book is that it reaffirms my belief that very little has changed in the conservative/fundamentalist community since the trial, an unfortunate problem. For i continually hear the exact same arguments on the discussion boards, it seems no one is listening to books like this.

W.J.Bryan and C.Darrow are the primary characters involved in the trial. Their polarization of the issues as between religion and godless atheism on Bryan's part, and between science as reason and fundamentalism as unthinking faith are exactly the polarizing demands from their respective successors today. The real issues (like one line in the book pointed to epistemology), the problem of taking past each other, the radical 'emptying' of any compromise positions, these are still the issues people fight about. If you are interested in these things this book will be a gentle introduction to the historical and continuing character of them.

The book is history, it doesnt try to answer these perennial questions, but rather is trying to clear the field of misconceptions as in the movie "Inherit the Wind". It has places that if the author had desired to could have been jumping off points for extended discussions, as in the introduction of the theistic evolutionist as expert witnesses. But this was not followed up, as it was not the author's intention to move past the history towards solutions, sadly for i think his ideas and research could help here. Maybe that is another book for him.

One real strength is the presentation of the trial as politically contrived, for the purpose of bringing people and money to Dayton. Contrived as a platform for the presentation of ideas or the playing to the crowd. I ended up with a greater respect for Bryan and a lesser one for Darrow, having read what their intentions were, and how they tried to accomplish them. Bryan ends up as an anomolous character, progressive in his politics, but holding to a somewhat childish faith with an inability to logically inform or express it. Sadly i feel that he died before he could begin to learn for the experiences of the trial and grow as a result of the troubles he had.

It's a good book, but i dont know who to recommend it to. Perhaps a history buff, or someone who liked Inherit the Wind and wants to learn the truth of the issues. It didnt really give me a lot of details about the issues in CED that i didnt already dig up myself, but it did confirm the fundamental correctness of several things i have thought about.

The Definitive Work on The Scopes Trial
This was a very good book. Having the whole fiasco narrated in such detail completely changed my impression of both the defense and the prosecution. I was surprised to learn what a jerk Clarence Darrow was - and how the ACLU kept trying to manipulate him out of the trial. Also corrected were some of my misunderstandings (and misgivings) about fundamentalism and Freethought (in the trademarked sense of the word) in the twenties and thirties.

Read this book and learn how the Scopes trial was an early pre-television episode of Reality T.V. Compared to it, "Inherit the Wind" is almost real. ... Read more

Book Description

This highly readable introduction discusses anthropological theory in a manner accessible to lay readers, yet does not oversimplify the material.Addresses five key concepts—evolution, culture, structure, function, and relativism—rather than individual theorists, and conveys the sense that their theory and associated debates can be interesting despite their complexity. Presents a balanced view of varying theoretical positions to pique readers' interest and avoid confusion. Uses clear, straightforward language, avoiding esoteric jargon. Critiques certain theoretical positions, including 19th-century racist theories and contemporary post-structural and postmodernist approaches. Includes a glossary of key terms that are highlighted throughout.A thought-provoking reference for anyone interested in learning about anthropology. ... Read more

Book Description

Anthropologist Jeremy Narby has altered how we understand the shamanic cultures and traditions that have undergone a worldwide revival in recent years. Now, in one of his most extraordinary journeys, Narby travels around the globe-from the Amazon basin to the Far East-to probe what traditional healers and pioneering researchers perceive about the intelligence present in all forms of life.

Intelligence in Nature offers overwhelming illustrative evidence that independent intelligence is not unique to humanity. Indeed, bacteria, plants, animals, and other forms of nonhuman life display an uncanny proclivity for self-deterministic decisions, patterns, and actions. The Japanese possess a word for this universal knowing: chi-sei. For the first time, Narby presents an in-depth anthropological study of this concept in the West. He not only uncovers a mysterious thread of intelligent behavior within the natural world but also probes the question of what humanity can learn from nature's economy and knowingness in its own search for a saner and more sustainable way of life. ... Read more

Book Description

"In the winter of 1995, in a dimly lit room in Atlanta, Georgia, I witnessed a birth. Not the birth of a baby, but of a new science, ethnopediatrics." Thus begins Meredith Small's new, groundbreaking book on the study of parents and infants across cultures and the way different caretaking styes affect the health, well-being, and survival of infants. Pediatricians, child development researchers, and anthropologists today have turned their research efforts to studying this new science of why we parent our children the way we do.

Each culture, and often each family, offers advice and directives on the right and wrong way to raise and care for infants, from feeding, interaction, emotional support, sleeping, and more. Yet scientists are finding that what we are taught is the right way to parent our children is based on nothing more than cultural directives-and may even run directly counter to a baby's biological needs. Should a child be encouraged to sleep alone from an early age, as parents do here in the U.S.? Is breastfeeding better than bottlefeeding, or is that just the myth of the '90s? How frequently should children be nursed-or does it matter? Do children in all cultures develop colic? How do mothers in different cultures respond to a crying baby? And how important to our infants' ultimate development is it to talk, sing, and interact with them? These are but a few of the questions Meredith Small, through the research emerging from this new science, answers-and the answers are not only surprising, but may even change the way that we think and go about raising our children.

Written for general audiences and parents alike, Our Babies, Ourselves shows what makes us bring up our kids the way we do-and what is actually best for babies. ... Read more

Reviews (49)

An eye-opening book and a true learning experience
I highly recommend "Our Babies, Ourselves" to any parent interested in an anthropologically and biologically-oriented approach to parenthood, especially motherhood. It provides numerous data on how biology affects the parent-baby relationship as well as the baby's behavior and objectively presents how various cultures (including the United States') worldwide accommodate and/or neglect these biological factors and the impact that accommodation or neglect has on the parent/baby relationship.

I got this book when my baby was 3 months old and for me it confirmed every instinct I had as a first-time mother who knew nothing of raising a child prior to having one. I carry my baby in a pouch any time I can; I breastfeed; I'd let the baby sleep in my bed if I could (my husband and I have a waterbed and it's not safe for babies), etc. All of these behaviors are highly, highly beneficial to babies for specific biological reasons.

This is not a "how to" book, nor does it promote any particular approach to child rearing. It is objective and actually rather academic in nature, yet intriguing and easy-to-understand.

Read the book! It's worth it!

Great read, informative cross cultural analysis of parenting
As a new Mom I have been faced with too many decisions about raising an infant. I enjoyed M. Smalls book very much it helped me understand why I have made some of the choices I have made, and why these choices are so hard to make. We live in a society/culture that honors certain qualities (like independence) our child rearing style has a tradition that comes out of the desire for our children to excell in these qualities. Yet, often these designs are in conflict with biology. As gaurdians of our children we want to help make the best people we can, with out telling me what to do this book has helped me understand that sometimes I will choose for biology and sometimes I must choose for culture. I want my daughter to thrive but, I also want her to fit in and do well in society.

Follow your instincts
It is amazing how much culture and tradition drive our parenting decisions. This book raises a lot of good questions about what is really good for babies. If you are going to read the What to Expect series, take it with a grain of salt and this book...

Interesting idea, but Wildly Facist and Unobjective
I find that much of the criticism of other reviewers is right on target. This book is repetitive and biased. While I myself practice many of the parenting techniques advocated in this book, ie baby wearing, breastfeeding on cue, etc, I found that Ms Small often drew conclusions from th