Social science / Anthropology

Venus of Khala-Kanti

by Angèle Kingué & Christine Schwartz Hartley – Bucknell University Press (November 04, 2014)

The story of Venus of Khala-Kanti unfolds in the ancient forests of an imaginary West African village. The story is at once a straightforward narrative of human courage and an allegory for the amputation of...

China Online: Netspeak and Wordplay Used by over 700 Million Chinese Internet Users

by Véronique Michel, Claude Muller & Sebastien Koval – Tuttle Publishing (March 10, 2015)

Dive into China's cool new web-based subculture with China Online!

Using Baidu, China's form of Google, young Chinese web-surfers are creating their own language on the Internet. With this book, you can get an...

Anthropological Conversations: Talking Culture across Disciplines

by Caroline B. Brettell – Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (October 23, 2014)

Brettell explores the cross-disciplinary exchanges, both past and present, which have engaged cultural anthropologists—and invites readers to continue the conversations.

Designing and Conducting Ethnographic Research: An Introduction

by Margaret D. LeCompte & Jean J. Schensul – AltaMira Press (September 16, 2010)

This first volume of the Ethnographer's Toolkit provides a practical, straightforward introduction to ethnography and ethnographic practice to the student and novice fieldworker.

Rapid Qualitative Inquiry: A Field Guide to Team-Based Assessment

by James Beebe – Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (October 23, 2014)

An accessible field guide to Rapid Qualitative Inquiry (RQI)—a team-based, applied research method designed to quickly develop an insider’s perspective on and preliminary understanding of complicated situations....

The Domestication of Language: Cultural Evolution and the Uniqueness of the Human Animal

by Daniel Cloud – Columbia University Press (November 25, 2014)

Language did not evolve only in the distant past. Our shared understanding of the meanings of words is ever-changing, and we make conscious, rational decisions about which words to use and what to mean by them...

Food on the Rails: The Golden Era of Railroad Dining

by Jeri Quinzio – Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (October 10, 2014)

Food on the Rails traces the rise and fall of food on the rails from its rocky start to its glory days to its sad demise. Looking at the foods, the service, the rail station restaurants, the menus, the dining...

Sordid Sex Lives

by Nigel Cawthorne – Quercus (November 04, 2014)

What do the rich and famous really get up to behind closed doors? When does sexual passion become sordid perversion? Who are history's most shocking deviants and what are their sex secrets? The pages of this...

The Cultural Revolution and Overacting: Dynamics between Politics and Performance

by Tuo Wang – Lexington Books (September 24, 2014)

This postmodern study of the Chinese Cultural Revolution examines the inner mechanism of the mass movement. Utilizing methodologies of cultural anthropology, linguistics, acting theory, and literary criticism,...

The Passage from Youth to Adulthood: Narrative and Cultural Thresholds

by Pierluca Birindelli – UPA (September 26, 2014)

This book investigates how young adults build their identities in modern society. Looking at narratives from Italian young adults living with their parents and from university students, along with sociological,...

Love and War: How Militarism Shapes Sexuality and Romance

by Tom Digby – Columbia University Press (October 28, 2014)

Ideas of masculinity and femininity become sharply defined in war-reliant societies, resulting in a presumed enmity between men and women. This so-called battle of the sexes intensifies in tandem with dispositions...

Lost World

by Tom Koppel – Atria Books (May 11, 2010)

For decades the issue seemed moot. The first settlers, we were told, were big-game hunters who arrived from Asia at the end of the Ice Age some 12,000 years ago, crossing a land bridge at the Bering Strait and...

Research Beyond Borders: Multidisciplinary Reflections

by Anjana Narayan, Lise-Hélène Smith, Wiline Pangle & Sami Hanna et al. – Lexington Books (December 28, 2011)

This collection draws insights from an interdisciplinary group of scholars specializing in diverse methods used in the social sciences and humanities to reflect on the empirical, methodological, and practical...

Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches

by H. Russell Bernard – AltaMira Press (April 16, 2011)

Research Methods in Anthropology is the standard textbook for methods classes in anthropology. Written in Russ BernardOs unmistakable conversational style, his guide has launched tens of thousands of students...

Population Control

by JIM MARRS – William Morrow (June 23, 2015)

From the food we eat, the water we drink to the air we breathe, everything these days seems capable of killing us. Recently we have seen an unprecedented number of deaths due to medications for diseases that...

Anthropologists in Arms: The Ethics of Military Anthropology

by George R. Lucas Jr. – AltaMira Press (October 15, 2009)

Anthropologists in Arms traces the troubled history of social scientists' collaboration with national military, security, and intelligence organizations and analyzes the moral and ethical debates provoked by...

A Guide to B.C. Indian Myth and Legend

by Ralph Maud – Talonbooks (August 01, 2014)

The luminaries of field research in British Columbia – Boas, Teit, Hill-Tout, Barbeau, and others – are discussed, their work evaluated.

The Character of Human Institutions: Robin Fox and the Rise of Biosocial Science

by Michael Egan – Transaction Publishers (June 30, 2014)

This volume celebrates the life and work of Robin Fox and the idea of a biosocial science. Robin Fox inspired many with an evolutionary vision of humanity that goes beyond narrow disciplinary boundaries and...

Anthropology of Childhood and Youth: International and Historical Perspectives

by Geoffrey Vitale – Lexington Books (July 16, 2014)

In this book, Geoffrey Vitale shows the ways in which people understand, raise, and educate children and youth differently from century to century and from country to country according to the culture, lifestyle,...

The Hour Between Dog and Wolf

by Laure-Anne Bosselaar & Charles Simic – BOA Editions Ltd. (July 01, 2014)

Lyrical poetry that sings of farmers, families and nunneries in Belgium and Flanders.

Reclaiming the Commons for the Common Good

by Heather Menzies – New Society Publishers (April 28, 2014)

An engaging and intimate journey of personal and political discovery.

The Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories

by Ralph Maud – Talonbooks (June 25, 2014)

A selection of the best stories by Henry W. Tate (d. 1914), an important Tsimshian informant to ethnographer Franz Boas.

The Peoples of Southeast Asia Today: Ethnography, Ethnology, and Change in a Complex Region

by Robert L. Winzeler – AltaMira Press (January 16, 2010)

This textbook explores Southeast Asia's modern peoples and their cultural ways and patterns of adaptation. It introduces the region's geography, languages, prehistory, and history, then delves into religion,...

Sacred Games, Death, and Renewal in the Ancient Eastern Woodlands: The Ohio Hopewell System of Cult Sodality Heterarchies

by A. Martin Byers – AltaMira Press (January 16, 2011)

A. Martin Byers challenges the traditional views of the Ohio Hopewell embankment earthworks, providing an interpretation of them as sites of sacred games and world renewal rituals built and used by complex alliances...

The Anthropology of Learning in Childhood

by David F. Lancy, John Bock & Suzanne Gaskins – AltaMira Press (January 15, 2010)

This first major anthropological reference book on childhood learning considers the cultural aspects of learning in childhood from the points of view of psychologists, sociologists, educators, and anthropologists....

Histories of American Physical Anthropology in the Twentieth Century

by Kenneth A. R. Kennedy, Michael A. Little, Jonathan Marks & Eugene Giles et al. – Lexington Books (December 23, 2009)

Histories of American Physical Anthropology in the Twentieth Century chronicles the history of physical anthropology_or, as it is now known, biological anthropology_from its professional origins in the late...

Building Trust: Doing Research to Understand Ethnic Communities

by Fumiko Hosokawa – Lexington Books (December 28, 2009)

This book studies five ethnic communities_South Asian Americans, African Americans, Japanese Americans, Mexican Americans, and Samoan Americans_to understand how their members feel about being studied by researchers....

Cooperation in Economy and Society

by Robert C. Marshall, Julie Hogeland, Gracia Clark & Bruce Dahlin et al. – AltaMira Press (November 16, 2010)

This book explores the burgeoning interest in human cooperation among anthropologists, political scientists, economists, evolutionary psychologists, and biologists. Though typically neglected, cooperation is...

Polynesians in America: Pre-Columbian Contacts with the New World

by José Miguel Ramírez-Aliaga, Elizabeth A. Matisoo-Smith, Alice A. Storey & Terry L. Jones et al. – AltaMira Press (January 16, 2011)

This volume presents a synthesis of over a century of academic research on the question of prehistoric trans-oceanic contacts between Polynesia and the New World. Leading experts in archaeology, botany, linguistics,...

The War Machine and Global Health

by Merrill Singer & G. Derrick Hodge – AltaMira Press (January 16, 2010)

This book of essays by medical anthropologists and other health social scientists examines the full measure of the disastrous global health effects of war in the contemporary world. It provides a political economic...

The Hausa of Nigeria

by Frank A. Salamone – UPA (December 28, 2009)

This book is the culmination of thirty-nine years of anthropological thought and research and many field trips to Nigeria. This work looks at the notion of identity formation and its relationship to history,...

Handbook of Methods in Cultural Anthropology

by H. Russell Bernard & Clarence C. Gravlee – Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (July 08, 2014)

Draws on both science and humanism to explore the scope of contemporary anthropological fieldwork in practice. This thoroughly revised second edition also features new chapters addressing online ethnography;...

Women Redefining the Experience of Food Insecurity: Life Off the Edge of the Table

by Janet Page-Reeves – Lexington Books (July 03, 2014)

In Women Redefining the Experience of Food Insecurity: Life Off the Edge of the Table, contributors stress the relationship between food insecurity and women’s agency. By problematizing the mundane world of...

Immortal Passage: Philosophical Speculations on Posthuman Evolution

by Asher Seidel – Lexington Books (October 11, 2010)

Immortal Passage: Philosophical Speculations on Posthuman Evolution defends the posthuman hypothesis: that descendants of present humans, leading lives of indefinitely extended duration, and having significantly...

Leprosy and a Life in South India: Journeys with a Tamil Brahmin

by James Staples – Lexington Books (June 05, 2014)

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork as well as many hours of interviews, Leprosy and a Life in South India: Journeys with a Tamil Brahmin documents the life story of Das, a South Indian Brahmin born in the newly...

Pigs and Persons in the Philippines: Human-Animal Entanglements in Ifugao Rituals

by Jon Henrik Ziegler Remme – Lexington Books (May 29, 2014)

This book examines how pigs are entangled in the constitution of relations between humans and between humans and spirits among the Ifugao of Northern Luzon in the Philippines. The book applies concepts like...

Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction: Environment and Affect

by Heather Houser – Columbia University Press (June 03, 2014)

The 1970s brought a new understanding of the biological and intellectual impact of environmental crises on human beings. As efforts to prevent ecological and bodily injury aligned, a new literature of sickness...

The Anthropology of Western Religions: Ideas, Organizations, and Constituencies

by Murray J. Leaf – Lexington Books (May 21, 2014)

The Anthropology of Western Religions: Ideas, Organizations, and Constituencies is a comparative survey of the world’s major religious traditions as professional enterprises and, often, as social movements....

The Anthropology of Eastern Religions: Ideas, Organizations, and Constituencies

by Murray J. Leaf – Lexington Books (May 21, 2014)

Anthropology of Eastern Religions: Ideas, Organizations, and Constituencies is a comparative survey of the world’s major religious traditions as professional enterprises and, often, as social movements. Documenting...

The Grapes of Math

by Alex Bellos – Simon & Schuster (June 10, 2014)

From triangles, rotations and power laws, to cones, curves and the dreaded calculus, Alex takes you on a journey of mathematical discovery with his signature wit and limitless enthusiasm. He sifts through over...

Narrating Social Work Through Autoethnography

by Stanley L. Witkin – Columbia University Press (June 03, 2014)

Autoethnography is an innovative approach to inquiry in which the researcher is also the subject of the research. Using scholarly and literary devices, the researcher/subject explores the social and cultural...

Working Forests in the Neotropics: Conservation through Sustainable Management?

by Daniel J. Zarin, Janaki R. R. Alavalapati, Frances E. Putz & Marianne Schmink – Columbia University Press (December 29, 2004)

-- Thomas Lovejoy, The H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment

Strangers in the Ethnic Homeland: Japanese Brazilian Return Migration in Transnational Perspective

by Takeyuki Tsuda – Columbia University Press (January 05, 2003)

Since the late 1980s, Brazilians of Japanese descent have been "return" migrating to Japan as unskilled foreign workers. With an immigrant population currently estimated at roughly 280,000, Japanese Brazilians...

A Collection of Chinese Maxims

by Yin Haibo & Yin Bangyan – Simon & Schuster (May 06, 2014)

A beautiful collection of Chinese maxims now available in both the original Chinese and in English translation. They cover such diverse topics as government, learning, cultivation of character, affections, and...

A Panoramic View of Chinese Culture

by Wu Dingming – Simon & Schuster (May 06, 2014)

A Panoramic View of Chinese Culture is an accessible introduction to the beautiful, vibrant world of Chinese customs, history, and civilization. Written for English speakers, with simplified Chinese translations...

Food, Power, and Resistance in the Andes: Exploring Quechua Verbal and Visual Narratives

by Alison Krögel – Lexington Books (December 16, 2010)

Food, Power, and Resistance explores the ways in which artistic representations of food and cooks often convey subversive meanings that resist attempts to locate indigenous Andeans-and Quechua women in particular-at...

Reproducing Chinese Culture in Diaspora: Sustainable Agriculture and Petrified Culture in Northern Thailand

by Shu-min Huang – Lexington Books (December 28, 2009)

Reproducing Chinese Culture in Diaspora describes how a group of anti-communist Chinese nationals managed to establish a farming community in Thailand's northern hills after voluntary exile from communist China...

The Devil's Snake Curve: A Fan's Notes From Left Field

by Josh Ostergaard – Coffee House Press (March 24, 2014)

A humorous, historical, and hirsute miscellany that's the baseball book Howard Zinn would have written, if he hated the Yankees.

Moved by the Past: Discontinuity and Historical Mutation

by Eelco Runia – Columbia University Press (May 06, 2014)

Historians go to great lengths to avoid confronting discontinuity, searching for explanations as to why such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, and the introduction of...

Hair Story

by Ayana Byrd & Lori Tharps – St. Martin's Press (April 15, 2014)

Two world wars, the Civil Rights movement, and a Jheri curl later, Blacks in America continue to have a complex and convoluted relationship with their hair. From the antebellum practice of shaving the head in...