Book Description

Drawing upon current theoretical debates in social anthropology, development studies and political ecology, and presenting original research from across the Archipelago, this book addresses the changing histories and identities of upland people as they relate in new ways to the natural resource base, to markets and to the state. It is an engaged study, which fills important analytical gaps and addresses real-world concerns, exploring the uplands as components of national and global systems of meaning, power, and production. It offers a significant re-assessment of concepts, processes, histories, relationships and discourses many of which are not unique to either the uplands or Indonesia, making the book essential and compelling reading for both scholars and practitioners. ... Read more

Book Description

This re-examination of the Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea, the people described in Malinowskis classic ethnographic work of the early 20th century, provides a balanced view of the society from a male and female perspective, including coverage of new discoveries about the importance of womans work and wealth in the society. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Whole New World
Annette Weiner has really captured the essence of the people of the Trobriand Islands in this ethnography. She was following in the footsteps of Malinowski a well known person in her field. She was not afraid to question his findings or contradict his beliefs. In the course of this ethnography, readers will come to know the culture of the Trobriand Islands. You will understand the importance of yams in their every day life. The rituals that you know see has odd will be proven to be spiritual and have more purpose that you could have ever imagined. You will learn in detail what the death of a Trobriander means to the entire community. Reading this book will leave you in awe of these people. You will learn of a culutre that is of matrilineal descent and what that means to them. This novel will open your eyes to a whole new world. A world of traditions and spiritual beliefs. The people of the Trobriand Islands will amaze you and you will walk away from this book with more knowledge and more respect for this people than you could have ever imagined. ... Read more

Book Description

Bernard Cohn's interest in the construction of Empire as an intellectual and cultural phenomenon has set the agenda for the academic study of modern Indian culture for over two decades. His earlier publications have shown how dramatic British innovations in India, including revenue and legal systems, led to fundamental structural changes in Indian social relations. This collection of his writings in the last fifteen years discusses areas in which the colonial impact has generally been overlooked. The essays form a multifaceted exploration of the ways in which the British discovery, collection, and codification of information about Indian society contributed to colonial cultural hegemony and political control.

Cohn argues that the British Orientalists' study of Indian languages was important to the colonial project of control and command. He also asserts that an arena of colonial power that seemed most benign and most susceptible to indigenous influences--mostly law--in fact became responsible for the institutional reactivation of peculiarly British notions about how to regulate a colonial society made up of "others." He shows how the very Orientalist imagination that led to brilliant antiquarian collections, archaeological finds, and photographic forays were in fact forms of constructing an India that could be better packaged, inferiorized, and ruled. A final essay on cloth suggests how clothes have been part of the history of both colonialism and anticolonialism. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The Rag and India...
A very interesting and important book. After reading it, we begin thinking about the Colonial Theater in a different way.This book analyses the interconnections between the Empire and India and the Indian's influences to the Rag. People who studies about these subjects MUST read this book. ... Read more

Book Description

A Study of the Play-Element in Culture ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Horrible translation!
Please be aware that this book really is a horrible translation of Huizinga's original and insightful attempts to make sense of 'play'.

Huizinga's contribution of the new word 'ludiek', introduced through his translations in almost every language but English, is simply left out of the introduction and does not occur in the book. This means that the logic Huizinga has set up, pointing out how cultural practices are characterized by 'ludieke' features (i.e. features of their game-like quality) gets reduced to a book on 'game elements'. The entire logic of play creating culture therefore never comes across, but stays obscured behind game elements in culture.

This translation should really be immediately taken from the market or redone by someone who actually tries his best to translate with integrity. An indication of the complete lack thereof is the note of the editor that he changed the subtitle from 'play element of culture' (which Huizinga in his introduction clarifies he fought for on several occassions to be maintained) into 'play element in culture', because "English prepositions are not governed by logic". The English-centricity complete overrules at least 90% of what Huizinga actually expresses.

Horrible.

Original but not essential.
Huizinga illustrates with numerous examples out of all sort of civilizations that culture first appears under the form of play. The first forms of culture are played. He finds his examples in as different fields as jurisdiction, art, poetry, battle ...
I agree that play was certainly influential or important for certain aspects of cultural life, but not for essential points like politics, exercise of power or distribution of wealth within a society.
This book is not in the same class as his other more known book 'The Autumn of the Middle Ages'.
He makes an important remark in his diatribe against Carl Schmitt, whom he reproaches his wrong point of view. Schmitt founds his jurisdictional work on the principle of 'friend-foe', in other words on war not on peace.

A masterpiece
Huizinga's genius is to find the idea of play hiding like a spider in the most unlikely places. The medieval "judicial duel", where justice was done by fighting? Clearly a development of ancient forms of combat - and that combat itself was always highly stylised and ritualised, which show, according to Huizinga, that they themselves were "play" forms. He demonstrates with convincing scholarship that Greek tragic drama and religion were also born from play.

The important thing for the reader to understand is that Huizinga does not think that play is in any way trivial or less than serious. In fact, he argues that play is a wider, more all-embracing concept than seriousness. Because the idea of seriousness excludes play, whereas the idea of play can very well be taken seriously. In the latter portion of his book, he laments the fact that play has been ripped from its organic place at the heart of communities and transferred to commercialized spheres of sport.

Contrary to what another reviewer says here, Huizinga was not writing in the 1950s but in 1938. A time when the old ideals of nobility and chivalry even in war had been exploded. A time when the very idea of play was something worth cherishing, something to attempt to preserve for a more fortunate future.

This is a masterpiece of deeply humanist historical and cultural analysis. If it annoys poststructuralists, well, its the poststructuralists who have the problems.

Steven Poole, author, Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution

flawed, but brilliant in its way
Huzinga sees the "play-instinct" as an instinct that emerged very early in human prehistory - in fact, he sees it as one of humanity's primary instincts, one which provides the fundament for other elements of society, such as religious ritual, war, and poetry. Huizinga believes this theory, and he could care less about convincing you: in many spots he just says "It is obvious that... [insert unfounded theory here]" and then he continues on. In a way, though, this is welcome - he's more interested in working with implications and extensions of his theory, and those are quite interesting.

Other bad news: Huizinga's writing in the earlier part of the twentieth century, and it shows: his sweeping generalizations about human culture are sure to annoy poststructuralist readers, and his sometimes-disdainful references to "savage" cultures are sure to annoy multiculturalists. All of this kept tempting me to put the book down for good - but every time I read a few more pages in I'd happen upon another interesting idea or strange fact. Huizinga's knowledge of the games and play-rituals of archaic cultures from all over the globe is genuinely encyclopedic - one minute he's talking about the root words for "play" in the Blackfoot Indian cultures, the next he's analyzing the way dice games manifest in the Mahabharata -and it's all fascinating. He may refer to other cultures as "savage," but his depictions of these cultures and how play fulfills an important role makes our own age appear sterile and joyless by contrast, a point picked up on and run with by the Situationist International, members of which loved this book. ... Read more

Book Description

Bones, Stones and Molecules provides some of the best evidence for resolving the debate between the two hypotheses of human origins.The debate between the 'Out of Africa' model and the 'Multiregional' hypothesis is examined through the functional and developmental processes associated with the evolution of the human skull and face and focuses on the significance of the Australian record.The book analyzes important new discoveries that have occurred recently and examines evidence that is not available elsewhere.Cameron and Groves argue that the existing evidence supports a recent origin for modern humans from Africa. They also specifically relate these two theories to interpretations of the origins of the first Australians.The book provides an up-to-date interpretation of the fossil, archaeological and the molecular evidence, specifically as it relates to Asia, and Australia in particular.

* Readily accessible to the layperson and professional
* Provides concise coverage of current scientific evidence
* Presents a robust computer-generated model of human speciation over the last 7 million years
* Well illustrated with figures and photographs of important fossil specimens
* Presents a synthesis of great ape and human evolution ... Read more

Book Description

What is Symbolism? The answer to this question has been known to challenge altogether man's life; and ignorance of it can reasonably be said to have produced all the gravest problems of our time. With reference to the great religions of the world, and in particular to Christianity and Islam, martin Lings here gives us the answer in the clarest terms, with an unusually wide scope of illustration, a versatility to which the list of the chapters headings bear some witness. At one point we are gripped by the universal message of our old Lithuanian songs which speak to us, in the language of symbols, from a remote antiquity; at another we are with the Queen of Sheba at her deeply symbolic meeting with Solomon, as recounted in the Qur'an. The central theme is man, stripped of his sub-human excrescences and re-endowed with his infinitely precious primordial heritage, and the reader is quickly impelled to identify himself with that centre. Nor is it only his intelligence that impels him, for the further we read, the more we renew our deeply ingrained consciousness that everything - numbers, elements, senses, colours, etc. - has a vertical dimension that gives it a divine significance; and this awareness brings with it an existential sense of that dimension in ourselves. ... Read more

Book Description

Clifford Geertz, one of the most influential thinkers of our time, here discusses some of the most urgent issues facing intellectuals today. In this collection of personal and revealing essays, he explores the nature of his anthropological work in relation to a broader public, serving as the foremost spokesperson of his generation of scholars, those who came of age after World War II. His reflections are written in a style that both entertains and disconcerts, as they engage us in topics ranging from moral relativism to the relationship between cultural and psychological differences, from the diversity and tension among activist faiths to "ethnic conflict" in today's politics.

Geertz, who once considered a career in philosophy, begins by explaining how he got swept into the revolutionary movement of symbolic anthropology. At that point, his work began to encompass not only the ethnography of groups in Southeast Asia and North Africa, but also the study of how meaning is made in all cultures--or, to use his phrase, to explore the "frames of meaning" in which people everywhere live out their lives. His philosophical orientation helped him to establish the role of anthropology within broader intellectual circles and led him to address the work of such leading thinkers as Charles Taylor, Thomas Kuhn, William James, and Jerome Bruner. In this volume, Geertz comments on their work as he explores questions in political philosophy, psychology, and religion that have intrigued him throughout his career but that now hold particular relevance in light of postmodernist thinking and multiculturalism. Available Light offers insightful discussions of concepts such as nation, identity, country, and self, with a reminder that like symbols in general, their meanings are not categorically fixed but grow and change through time and place.

This book treats the reader to an analysis of the American intellectual climate by someone who did much to shape it. One can read Available Light both for its revelation of public culture in its dynamic, evolving forms and for the story it tells about the remarkable adventures of an innovator during the "golden years" of American academia. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A book to ponder on
This I found an interesting compilation of essays to someone reflecting on the role of anthropology as a discipline. Also includes among other subjects essays on anti-anti-relativism (!), the world order after the Cold War (that is today) and the late Thomas Kuhn, famous for his thinking in the philosophy of science. For anybody with an interest in philosophy, natural sciences and/or politics this is a fine book.

Geertz at his best, Available Light
Any student of culture in the "social studies" sense who has picked up a new book and found inside a "kindred spirit," as I did 40 years ago with Albert Camus and, more recently, with Clifford Geertz, has a treat in storewith Geertz' most recent, perhaps last, offering: Available Light:Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics (Princeton UP,2000).

Right from the Preface, this flight is "Go for orbit."Whileseemingly bidding farewell to us, and this "vast inelegance" (attributed byGeertz to Stevens), Geertz lifts one's thoughts to uncommon heights usingbroad, galloping strokes in particular detail, kept on track withparenthetical interjections, self-depricating personal and professionalreminders, and living proofs that long sentences need not beincomprehensible.

Although it is hard to know whetherAvailableLightwould have had the same impact, had I not spent the last two yearsupdating my 1960s cultural anthropology education, I believe it would havehelped to read it first, rather than last, before readingInterpretationof Cultures,Local Knowledge,Works & Lives,andAfter the Fact, aswell as many non-Geertz offerings.

HadAvailable Lightcome tohand before I read 3 interesting, helpful, but turgid, volumes onethnographic field work and methodology, in preparation for a retirementproject I'm planning, I would surely have struggled less with any of thethree.With 3 fundamental field work questions in a single sentence,Geertz made it all clear, the remainder being mostly "techniques" whichthose 3 books richly supplied. Where were you, Clifford, when I neededyou?

Even more, hadAvailable Lightcome to hand earlier in myself-tutorial sojourn, I would surely have struggled less with such basicconcepts as"culture,""religion," and"semiotics."We who lay no greatclaim to extraordinary intellectual prowess can use Geertz' succinctdefinitional descriptions to collect, organize and parse the cacophony ofcompeting definitions, perspectives, and outright agendas surrounding eachsuch key anthropological concept.

Finally, the writing!You willrarely find such clear, lucid writing.It is a trait, I find, not uniqueto Geertz, but Geertz does it better than most.It is not simple writing -on the contrary! - but clear;few short sentences, as precision so oftenrequires modulating interjection. Available Lightcould find valuableuse by English and journalism students just for study of writingclarity!

If I have a gripe, it's only shared by Geertz with so manyHarvard-trained so-called scholars, a propensity for uncommon vocabulary -not big words, mind you, but such uncommon ones that I, schooled so manydecades ago, still race for the dictionary (where, incidentally, many donot occur).My working vocabulary is enormous, so I suspect "airs" when Iencounter too many unknown words, even when they turn out to be well-suitedto their context, and particularly when there is an equally-suitable,better-known synonym available.

One rejoinder:Early in Available Light,Geertz notes, he has not actually taught in many years.On the contrary,Professor Geertz, on the contrary! (Rod Borlase)

Great collection
This was a pretty good compilation of essays, both popular and lesser known. Very worthwhile! ... Read more

Book Description

With world-wide environmental destruction and globalization of economy, a few languages, especially English, are spreading rapidly in use, while thousands of other languages are disappearing, taking with them important cultural, philosophical and environmental knowledge systems and oral literatures. We all stand to suffer from such a loss, none more so than the communities whose very identity is being threatened by the impending death of their languages. In response to this crisis, indigenous communities around the world have begun to develop a myriad of projects to keep their languages alive. This volume is a set of detailed accounts about the kind of work that is going on now as people struggle for their linguistic survival. It also serves as a manual of effective practices in language revitalization.

Key Features
* Includes 23 case studies of language revitalization in practice, from Native American languages, Australian languages, Maori, Hawaiian, Welsh, Irish, and others, written primarily by authors directly involved in the programs
* Short introductions situate the languages, to help make the languages more "real" in the minds of readers
* Each chapter gives a detailed overview of the various kinds of programs and methods in practice today
* Introductions and maps for each of the languages represented familiarize the reader with their history, linguistic structure and sociolinguistic features
* Strong representation in authorship and viewpoint of the people and communities whose languages are threatened, gives the readers an inside understanding of the issues involved and the community-internal attitudes toward language loss and revitalization ... Read more

Book Description

This classic, bestselling study of the !Kung San, foragers of the Dobe area of the Kalahari Desert describes a people's reactions to the forces of modernization, detailing relatively recent changesto !Kung rituals, beliefs, social structure, marriage and kinship system. It documents their determination to take hold of their own destiny?despite exploitation of their habitat and relentless development?to assert their political rights and revitalize their communities. Use of the name Ju/'hoansi (meaning "real people") acknowledges their new sense of empowerment. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

You cannot expect anything better!
I haven't even read the entire book yet, but I can still tell how wonderful it is going to be when I have finished it. I'll probably want to read it again because it is so interesting. This study has opened up somany new understandings of unique ways of life that I cannot wait to buymore Case Studies just like this one!It's the perfect addition for anyonewith a curiosity of how unique people exist in different parts of theworld, specifically in South Africa. By far the most interesting andentertaining work I have read--it sure beats thoses dull books we have toread in AP English!

An outstanding and thought-provoking book.
The Dobe Ju/' hoansi is a masterpiece in modern cultural anthropology. It absorbs the richness and the level of complexity of humankind. Lee opens our mind and lets us appreciate the level of diversity in our world.While Richard B. Lee delineates the differences between our advancedwestern society and the simple bushmen society of southern Africa,he points-out thesimilarities we all share as humans, without regards to race, creed, social class or gender. This book helps us understand ourselves and perhaps see the world without all the tint of biases we all carry around ... Read more

Book Description

Comprehensive, readable and written for the student, Haviland/Prins/Walwrath's market-leading text, CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, is a highly relevant, high-quality teaching tool now available in a low price format. The narrative voice of the text has been thoroughly internationalized and the "we:they" Western voice has been replaced with an inclusive one that will resonate with both Western and non-Western students and professors. In addition, gender, ethnicity, and stratification concepts and terminologies have been completely overhauled in accordance with contemporary thinking and the narrative streamlined using more fully developed, balanced, and global examples. In CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, the authors present students with examples of "local responses" to challenging globalization issues, designed to provide students with a "cross-cultural survival guide" for living in the diverse, multicultural world of the 21st century. This edition is a truly exciting and unique examination into the field of cultural anthropology, its insights, its relevance, and the continuing role of cultural survival issues. ... Read more

Book Description

This lively book uses a historical framework to address gender in America in terms of a set of dominant cultural themes—explaining how these themes both fluctuate over time, and are responded to in different ways by various ethnic groups and social classes. It encourages readers to consider gender in America as enmeshed in the country's distinctive cultural traditions.Chapter topics include a cultural history of American gender: 1600 to 1900; .a look at the twentieth century; coverage of native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans; gender on the college campus; and themes and issues of American gender.For anyone interested in getting a better look at mainstream American cultural values concerning gender. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A revolutionary look at sex roles in America
I enjoyed this book.I found it very readable.It provides a good look at women's roles and how little they have change through the years.

Interesting Look at American Culture and Women's roles
A very readable book that deals with womens's roles in America.It shows that American college women still want to get married and have families even though there are many more options available. ... Read more

Book Description

This is a revision of a highly readable, instructive, and entertaining ethnography for use as a supplemental text in introductory anthropology courses.The text chronicles the rapid social and economic change in Arembepe, a Brazilian coastal fishing village, where the author conducted anthropological fieldwork from 1962 to the present.This revision brings his research up to date with events that have occurred in this community in the 1990's, focusing primarily on the impact of modernization, technology and mass media.This ethnography can be used on its own, or in conjunction with any introductory anthropology text, but works particularly well with, Mirror for Humanity, 2/e (1999) also by Conrad Kottak.The coinciding publication of these two books offers professors the chance to give their students a brief text by a leading anthropologist, along with his most successful ethnography. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Social Change in a Brazilian Village
Conrad Kottack visited the little town of Arembepe, Brazil three separate times:in the 1960s, in the 1970s and the 1980s.As a cultural anthropologist, he diligently documented all of the changed that occurred in that village on each occasion he had to visit.When the three visits are all added together, it's easy to see the way that increased industrialization has impacted even the most remote areas of the world.If you're at all interested in international development, anthropology, or other cultures, I would highly recommend this book.

Kottaks Humanity expressed in the text
I really enjoyed Assault on Paradise, because of the author's honesty in telling the story of the ecological degradation and the social benefits ofthe changing of Arembepe.Kottak presents himself as a man, not someuntouchable holier than though scholar.

Assault on Paradise explores thesocial and ecological changes of the fishing village of Arembepe, BahiaBrazil.Paying attention to the changes in Arembepe values towardattitudes of work, economic inequality, and division of labor, fishing,tourism, and manufacturing labor.It explains social networks, the natureof family life, friendships, and work groups.The main forces that broughtabout change were the introduction of new technologies, the motorization ofthe fishing industry, industrial pollution, the growth of Arembepe due to apaved highway, the ippi invasion and tourism.

Excellent book / Entertaining read
Thank you, Mr. Kottak, for such an entertaining read!This book is intelligent and the writing is beautifully clear.There are very few social scientific accounts that have been able to trace social changethrough decades of direct participant observation.I found this accountboth insightful and engrossing.I'm sure you will appreciate this work.

A Sad commentary on Our culture
Used as a textbook as part of a Social Anthropology course, this book presents a sad commentary on the imposition of a mechanized culture on a happy, but economically poor (according to OUR standards)culture.Theauthor presents the material in a straightforward, factual manner that iseasy to read and understand.If you're looking for blood and gore, this isnot the "assault" for you.But if you're interested in a graphicexample of what "we" have done to another culture, read this!

Very dry and repetitive
This book is very dry in content and very repetitive!How many times do we have to read about the hippies!It is very hard to keep one's attention and interest.Very boring. ... Read more

Book Description

This new book offers comprehensive coverage of all the major topics in the field of forensics with accuracy, intensity, and clarity.Readers will rejoice in the thoughtful pedagogy that leads them step by step through the most current and detailed forensic anthropology book to date! Following the protocol developed for the field by Clyde Snow in his 1982 article in the Annual Review of Anthropology, this cutting-edge book includes coverage of all areas in the field including sections on "time since death" and "the effects of trauma on the skeleton." Extensive illustrations and photos ensure the accessibility of the book.As one reviewer says, "There is no other source available that is so comprehensive in its coverage of the methods and issues in the current practice of forensic anthropology." For students or anyone interested in forensic anthropology. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

An Enduring Classic
The Nuer is a challenging but supremely rewarding study of a people who, with minimal technology and living a way of life that is very primitive by the standards of Westerners, achieve a perfection of ecological harmony with their environment. Evans-Pritchard's (E-P) description of the Nuers' rich and multifaceted relationship with their cattle is unforgettable. E-P writes with elegance, brilliance, compassion, and respect for the proud and dignified Nuer who, because of this great monograph, are among the most famous people ever studied by anthropologists.

A turning point is Social Anthropology
I disagree completely with the "reader from Washington" who wrote it is a boring book. Probably he/she didn't read more than the first two, more descriptive chapters. This book became "a classic" because it was a turning point in the history of Anthropology, specially because of its analysis of the political system of the Nuer.

Nuerific!
This book is one of the classics of ethnography - indeed, one of the works which defines what ethnography and anthropology are.

The Nuer is an account of a group of pastoralists living in the Sudan as Evans-Pritchard knew them when he did field work in er... uh... the late 30s early 40s. The first half of the book is a detailed and lively (for an academic) account of their way of life, the seasonal rhythms of the year, and their intense interest in cattle.

The second half of the book than deals with the main subject of the book: the social organization of the Nuer. E-P moves to a greater and greater level of abstraction, creating a more and more crystalline view of the patterns of kinship and marriage that underlie Nuer life. The main structure is the lineage system - a group of people all related from a common ancestor through an unbroken line of male succession.

This book is famous because of E-P's account of the lineage system. The concept of the lineage and descent became key in anthropology, and E-P's Nuer materials helped provide the perfect example of the lineage as theorized by Radcliffe-Brown, E-P's teacher.

As a result of this book, anthropologists spend the next two decades running around all over the world looking for lineage systems. As it turns out, this sort of system is not particularly widespread across the world - at least not in its pure form. Indeed, it turns out that E-P's formulation was too neat and clean and too crystalline. As one pundit put it, "not even the Nuer are like The Nuer". So one drawback of the book is the false clarity that it provided. This was useful in the forties and fifties, but meant that eventually the study of kinship and social organization would have to move out of the paradigm E-P had set up.

Another problem with the book is the fact that it takes place in a vacuum. It is easy not to notice that the Nuer are under the sway of British authority and had recently been bombed when E-P arrived. The colonial context of the book is supressed.

There are other critcisms that could be made of the book - it is now a half-century behing the times - but it stands up today as a good read and a fascinating argument. The fact that reactions to it have been so extreme - overwhelming enthusiasm, abiding hatred, quizzical puzzlement, cow obsession - point to the fact that a book doesn't have to be loved forever to be read forever. Like all classics, The Nuer both good to read and good to think.

Boring -- but a classic
This is a common text for many introductory anthropology courses. It's apparently a classic ethnographic work, but honestly one of the most boring books I think I have ever read. ... Read more

Book Description

This volume provides an authoritative account of the current status of archaeological theory, as presented by some of its major exponents and innovators over the last decade.It summarizes recent developments and looks to the future, exploring some of the cutting-edge ideas at the forefront of the discipline. While few practitioners in theoretical archaeology would still argue for a unified disciplinary approach, few volumes have explored the full range of emerging perspectives.This volume, however, captures the diversity of contemporary archaeological theory.Some authors argue for an approach close to the natural sciences, others for an engagement with cultural debate about representation of the past.Some minimize the relevance of culture to societal change, while others see it as central; some focus on the contingent and the local, others on long-term evolution. The volume also reflects archaeology's new openness to external influences, as well as the desire to contribute to wider debates.The contributors examine ways in which archaeological evidence contributes to theories of evolutionary psychology, as well as to the social sciences in general, where theories of social relationships, agency, landscape and identity are informed by the long-term perspective of archaeology. Archaeological Theory Today will be essential reading for students and scholars in archaeology and in the social sciences more generally. ... Read more

Book Description

A study of primitive people which, for beauty of...style and concept, would be hard to match." -- The New York Times Book Review

In the 1950s Elizabeth Marshall Thomas became one of the first Westerners to live with the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert in Botswana and South-West Africa. Her account of these nomadic hunter-gatherers, whose way of life had remained unchanged for thousands of years, is a ground-breaking work of anthropology, remarkable not only for its scholarship but for its novelistic grasp of character. On the basis of field trips in the 1980s, Thomas has now updated her book to show what happened to the Bushmen as the tide of industrial civilization -- with its flotsam of property rights, wage labor, and alcohol -- swept over them. The result is a powerful, elegiac look at an endangered culture as well as a provocative critique of our own.

"The charm of this book is that the author can so truly convey the strangeness of the desert life in which we perceive human traits as familiar as our own....The Harmless People is a model of exposition: the style very simple and precise, perfectly suited to the neat, even fastidious activities of a people who must make their world out of next to nothing."

-- The Atlantic ... Read more

Reviews (4)

A Fascinating Look at An Indigenous People
I read 'The Harmless People' for my anthropology class and I enjoyed it. I liked the writing style and the story kept me interested and learning the whole time.

Classic, well-written, and enjoyable study of the Bushmen
This is a detailed, fascinating, and even beautiful account of the author's field study of the Kung! Bushman. Along with the Australian aborigines, the Bushman of the Kalahari desert, who inhabit an arid tableland in southwest Africa, are considered one of the two most primitive cultures in existence. The Bushmen aren't native to the Kalahari but were forced there as a result of conflicts with the white man and other tribes after the 17th century. Thomas gives a detailed account of their way of life and how they are able to survive in one of the most desolate places on earth. The Bushmen are very short of stature, averaging only 4 feet, 10 inches tall, and their skin has a yellowish tinge that is different from the blacker skin of their surrounding neighbors. The Kalahari has no surface water, and the rare rainfall immediately dries up. One of the few ways they get moisture as well as food is the tsama melon, which grows underground. The tsama melons are so important that the rights to a particular locale are inherited, which is unusual among the Bushmen. To survive in this harsh environment, the Bushmen have become expert botanists and can identify over 300 different kinds of plants, and they hunt antelope with poisoned arrows. Marriage among the Bushmen can occur at a very early age, but for women it is considered inappropriate to become fully sexually active and to marry before the age of 12. After having been almost completely wiped out between the 17th and the 19th century through conflicts with other tribes and the white man, there are now about 50,000 Bushmen inhabiting the Kalahari.

Years later, when I saw the movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, I recalled my first encountering the Bushmen in Thomas's wonderful little book. Several years after that, I had the opportunity to hear Jamie Uys speak, the south African director of the movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, and he also described what it was like to work with and live in the Kalahari with the Bushmen during the making of his movie. Both he and Thomas commented that there was something very likeable about the Kalahari Bushmen, who now live very peaceably in their little arid paradise with relatively little conflict and strife. Well, paradise isn't exactly the word for the inhospitable environment where they live, but nevertheless the Bushmen came across in both Thomas's and Uys's accounts as overall quite happy and content with their life. Ever since reading this book, I have thought it ironic to consider that the more advanced cultures in other parts of the world, including those of us in the modern western countries, who are considerably more advanced, probably live no more happy and less stressful lives than the primitive Bushmen. Of course, one must be careful about the "Noble Savage" fallacy, but in the case of the Bushmen it seems to be true. This book is an updated edition of the one I read many years ago in college. Overall a classic study that takes its place alongside other great anthropological classics of Africa like Colin Turnbull's The Forest People, about the pygmies.

An early ethnographic account with wonderful information
A seminal work of Thomas' experience living with the Kalahari !Kung hunter-gatherers in the 1950s. This is an intimate, personal account of her experience plus a colorful look at quite possibly how all of our ancestors once lived, including how this culture has, since the '50s, basically been destroyed by civilization. A valuable lesson in 303 pages.

A wonderful reading experience
This is a simple account, yet honest and very entertaining. It describes a people almost totally uninfluenced by the advancements and vices of the outside world. The stories held my attention without fail. While classified as anthropology, it is not written in a scientific manner and is approachable for anyone looking to experience a wholly foreign culture.
The last chapter, which describes the people after thirty years, is discouraging, but gives some insight into our own ways of life. This is probably the best non-fiction "story" I have ever read. ... Read more

Book Description

Since its first publication in English in 1954, The Gift, Marcel Mauss's groundbreaking study of the relation between forms of exchange and social structure, has been acclaimed as a classic among anthropology texts. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Social Science Man
In his The Gift, Marcel Mauss attempts to explain and understand gifts in primitive societies. Mauss first decides to show that the motives behind giving gifts are more complicated than commonly believed to be. In modern day society, gifts are often thought of as something given out of good will and without the expectance of something in return. Mauss shows us that in many tribal and native cultures, this is not necessarily true. In discussing the Maori, he says, "They had a kind of exchange system, or rather one of giving presents that must ultimately either be reciprocated or given back" (10). The principle of gift giving is governed by the concept of mana, which is the authority, honor, and prestige derived from the wealth and glory of being a superior gift giver. One must give gifts in order to maintain and increase mana and reciprocates them in order to prevent oneself from losing it. The obligations to give and receive are both very important. To reject a gift leads to two problems. Initially, Mauss states that to do so "is to reject the bond of alliance and commonality" (13). To reject such an important bond in a society that so heavily values communal identity is "tantamount to declaring war" (13). The second problem is that of losing mana and being viewed as afraid to accept gifts because one is unable to reciprocate them. The concept of gift giving as one that has the motives of power and authority involved displaces the common belief of gift giving. Durkheim's influence on Mauss is apparent in Mauss' discussion of the contract and sacred qualities. The sacred quality of exchange and contracts also has a relationship to appeasing the gods according to Mauss, or so it is viewed in primitive societies (and according to Durkheim the remnants of such beliefs continue in today's society). Mauss says that the ideal of the gift as distributive justice arises from the belief that the gods punish those with great wealth who are not generous. Therefore, if a gift are given out of generosity and to promote justice, does that mean that those with less wealth have not only less honor and authority, but also a lower level of justness because they are unable to give great gifts?
Gift giving appears to be a "total" social phenomenon or service because of how it works on not only economic levels, but also social levels. The motives for gift giving are not as magnanimous as one may believe because as Mauss says concerning exchange-gifts, "They are kept for the sheer pleasure of possessing them" (23). He seeks to understand the blind accumulation of wealth and says that it is motivated by "competition, rivalry, ostentatiousness, the seeking after the grandiose" (28). To him, these are somewhat negative motives, although he does not explicitly say so. Mauss shows how gift giving evolves with the Native Americans where the concept of honor is more exaggerated and the idea of "credit" and a time limit on the reciprocation of gifts is highlighted. A gift is essentially given with the motive that not only does one gain honor, respect, and authority from it, but that one will also receive something in return. Now if this something received in return is usually paid "with interest" so to speak as it is expected to be of greater value than the original gift. If Mauss is indeed correct, then why is there not a greater disparity of wealth in these primitive societies? If one is wealthy, then one could seek to continuously extend one's own authority and wealth at the same time by giving all the time, since accepting the gift is virtually required, a wealthy person could do so and gain interest on all the gifts given.

Overall, it's interesting and provocative. It is helpful to have read Durkheim's Professional Ethics and Civic Morals (then you realize that Mauss is just following in Durkheim's footsteps). What kind of society do they propose? It's not too clear. I'm still trying to figure that one out, but nonetheless, it's a provocative book, as is Durkheim's.

The Gift
Mauss' book is a part sociological, part anthropological study of the practice of gift exchange. First, he explores the various forms this practice takes in distinct ethnographic settings. In each case, one catches a glimpse of what Mauss calls the 'total social fact': the notion that exchanging gifts signifies, beneath its voluntary and individualistic façade, a complex social affair. On the one hand, bonds of solidarity are created/maintained between implicated social groups; on the other, political relations of subordination (in which the donor often, if not always, occupies the dominant position) are reproduced/contested. Second, Mauss moves on to problematize the notion that the thing exchanged is merely an 'inert and lifeless object' and the synchronic view of gift exchange as a short-lived act devoid of temporality. Working his way through his ethnographic observations, Mauss unearths the historical dimension of the gift, which now appears to possess a 'spiritual' power irredemiably related to the donor and a historicity (and story) beyond the momentary encounter between donor and recipient. What follows from these two complementary arguments is that gift exchange, contrary to the individualistic notion that it merely involves the persons exchanging the gifts, establishes a wider social/political nexus, connecting the social groups the donor and recipient are members of. Finally, Mauss returns to the present and redeems the gift from its 'archaic' context to explore its potential as a social-democratic tool against 'unbridled' capitalist exchange. ... Read more

Book Description

Faces of the State is a penetrating study of the production of a state-revering political culture in the public life of 1990s Turkey. In this new contribution to the anthropology of the state, Yael Navaro-Yashin brings recent poststructuralist and psychoanalytic theory to bear on the study of the political. Delving deeper than studies of nationalist discourse that would focus on consciously articulated narratives of political identity, the author explores sites of "fantasy" in the public-political domain of Istanbul.

The book focuses on the conflict over secularism in the aftermath of an Islamist victory in the city's municipalities. In contrast with studies that would problematize and objectify religious movements, the author examines the agency of secularists under a state widely known for its "secularist" policies. The complexity and dynamism of the context studied moves well beyond scholarly distinctions between "secularity" and "religion," as well as "state" and "society." Here, secularism and Islamism emerge as different guises for a culture of statism where people from "society" compete to claim "Turkish culture" for themselves and their life practices. With this work that stretches the boundaries of regionalism, the author situates her anthropological study of Turkey not only in scholarship on the Middle East, but also in the broader problem of thinking "Europe" anew.

Reviews (1)

Writing about Turkey
This book explores how the boundaries between the state and the public (or society) are blurred in the context of Turkey. It provides some important and interesting insights on how state is produced and reproduced in the acts and daily lives of people. And of course, as in any discussion of "State" in Turkey, secularism takes the central stage.

However, as a Turkish secularist myself, I do not think that the book is especially successful in depicting and theorizing about the tension betweeen the secularists and Islamists. The presentation of people from both sides, particularly of elite urban secularists appear very much as caricatures. It feels as if the author has purposefully picked up some stereotypic images and put them together to create a dichotomy between the two groups. This is interesting, because the rest of the book is talking about crossing borders; between secularism and religion; native and foreign, etc. as well as state and public.

Navaro-Yashin theorizes about the fear of secularists of Islamists, or the fear of living under Islamic rule for that matter, as rather a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think she can theorize as such with the benefit of her subject-position, as a Jew in Turkey. Although I agree with her that Turks have internalized the "existing Western structure of feeling of fear about an Islamic order", Turkish people of younger generation have had witnessed enough to see their fear as rational. For example there is no mention of the 1993 Sivas massacre during which 37 secularist intellectuals were killed, and only very brief mention of the murders of several secularist journalists, scientists and writers. For most of these killings the murderers are officially unkown, but Islamist militant groups definitely have played a major role. By clearly separating herself from the "so-called Turks", the author is able to create herself a space where she becomes immune to the "secularist excesses", which she criticizes. The good side is that she can think and write about things which would have horrified certain secularist (and maybe Islamist) groups in Turkey. The down side is that there is almost no empathy, no insider view or feeling, which results in cartoon-like characters and joke-like situations in her writing.

One other problem about the book is that it does not give a clear idea of the research methodology and the surroundings. An important portion of the materials, particularly about the secularist-Islamist discourse comes from Turkish mass media, but apart from that one does not get a good grasp of where and how the research has evolved. And anthropologist, again, is almost totally invisible apart from a few anectodes. I understand that the author claims that one has to go beyond the classical ways and boundaries for such a research. But I keep wondering if it is assumed that one can have intrinsic knowledge about a place/a situation at the level of answering research questions as long as one lives through it.

In brief, I think this is an important book, because there are so few ethnographic studies about Turkey. It is also interesting because it was written by a "not-too-native" anthropologist and in a way it counter attacks several of the previous works on Turkey, particularly by Turkish sociologists. It will make an interesting reading -with some caution- for those concerned about Turkey. ... Read more