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› Find signed collectible books: '500 Nations: An Illustrated History of North American Indians'
The companion volume to the 1995 popular PBS series of the same name, 500 Nations is a richly illustrated, absorbingly written history of North America's indigenous peoples. Drawing on creation stories, oral history, archaeological evidence, federal documents, and hundreds of published sources, Josephy takes us on an encyclopedic journey through Native America's past and present. Few scholars have Josephy's command of his broad and complex subject, and fewer still write as dexterously. The result: the best one-volume, general-interest study of Native American history now available. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'After the Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades, One Anthropologist'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ancient Rome'
Explains the customs and daily life of the Romans through a clear, informative text, and features layered illustrations using acetate that reveal the outside and inside of a Roman town house, a theater, an army fort, and the Roman baths. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anthropology: Contemporary Perspectives'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, Theory, and Critique'
In The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, Theory and Critique, editor Joan Vincent offers her readers a selection of classic and contemporary articles on the anthropology of politics. Her introduction, headnotes, and suggested readings make this an indispensable resource for students, scholars, and instructors alike. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Arabian Nights'
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
These stories (and stories within stories, and stories within stories within stories), told by the Princess Shahrazad under the threat of death if she ceases to amuse, first reached the West around 1700. They fired in the European imagination an appetite for the mysterious and exotic which has never left it. Collected over centuries from India, Persia, and Arabia, and ranging from vivacious erotica, animal fables, and adventure fantasies to pointed Sufi tales, the stories of The Arabian Nights provided the daily entertainment of the medieval Islamic world at the height of its glory.
The present new translation by Husain Haddawy is of the Mahdi edition, the definitive Arabic edition of a fourteenth-century Syrian manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, which is the oldest surviving version of the tales and is considered to be the most authentic. This early version is without the embellishments and additions that appear in later Indian and Egyptian manuscripts, on which all previous English translations were based. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, Or, The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night'
Full of mischief and valor, ribaldry and romance, The Arabian Nights is a work that has enthralled readers for centuries. The text presented here is that of the 1932 Modern Library edition for which Bennett A. Cerf chose the "most famous and representative" of the stories from the multivolume translation of Richard F. Burton.
The origins of The Arabian Nights are obscure. About a thousand years ago a vast number of stories in Arabic from various countries began to be brought together; only much later was the collection called The Arabian Nights or the Thousand and One Nights. All the stories are told by Shahrazad (Scheherazade), who entertains her husband, King Shahryar, whose custom it was to execute his wives after a single night. Shahrazad begins a story each night but withholds the ending until the following night, thus postponing her execution.
This selection includes many of the stories that are universally known though seldom read in this authentic form:
"Alaeddin; or, the Wonderful Lamp," "Sindbad the Seaman and Sindbad the Landsman," and "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves." These, and the tales that accompany them, make delightful reading, demonstrating, as the Modern Library noted in 1932, that Shahrazad's spell remains unbroken. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Archaeological Theory: An Introduction'
This is a lively overview of the major ideas and concepts in archaeological theory. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Archaeology: A Brief Introduction'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physicists'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas'
Few Americans identify slavery with the cultivation of rice, yet rice was a major plantation crop during the first three centuries of settlement in the Americas. Rice accompanied African slaves across the Middle Passage throughout the New World to Brazil, the Caribbean, and the southern United States. By the middle of the eighteenth century, rice plantations in South Carolina and the black slaves who worked them had created one of the most profitable economies in the world.
Black Rice tells the story of the true provenance of rice in the Americas. It establishes, through agricultural and historical evidence, the vital significance of rice in West African society for a millennium before Europeans arrived and the slave trade began. The standard belief that Europeans introduced rice to West Africa and then brought the knowledge of its cultivation to the Americas is a fundamental fallacy, one which succeeds in effacing the origins of the crop and the role of Africans and African-American slaves in transferring the seed, the cultivation skills, and the cultural practices necessary for establishing it in the New World.
In this vivid interpretation of rice and slaves in the Atlantic world, Judith Carney reveals how racism has shaped our historical memory and neglected this critical African contribution to the making of the Americas.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Body Language'
This classic books introduces kinetics, the science of non-verbal communication, which is used to analyze the common gestures we use and observe every day, gestures which reveal our deepest feelings and hidden thoughts to total strangersif they know how to read them. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Boiling Energy'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Boiling Energy: Community Healing Among the Kalahari Kung'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bones: Discovering the First Americans'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bulfinch's Mythology'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bulfinch's Mythology : The Age of Fable, the Age of Chivalry, Legends of Charlemagne'
For almost a century and a half, Bulfinch's Mythology has been the text by which the great tales of the gods and goddesses, Greek and Roman antiquity; Scandinavian, Celtic, and Oriental fables and myths; and the age of chivalry have been known.
The stories are divided into three sections: The Age of Fable or Stories of Gods and Heroes (first published in 1855); The Age of Chivalry (1858), which contains King Arthur and His Knights, The Mabinogeon, and The Knights of English History; and Legends of Charlemagne or Romance of the Middle Ages (1863). For the Greek myths, Bulfinch drew on Ovid and Virgil, and for the sagas of the north, from Mallet's Northern Antiquities. He provides lively versions of the myths of Zeus and Hera, Venus and Adonis, Daphne and Apollo, and their cohorts on Mount Olympus; the love story of Pygmalion and Galatea; the legends of the Trojan War and the epic wanderings of Ulysses and Aeneas; the joys of Valhalla and the furies of Thor; and the tales of Beowulf and Robin Hood.
The tales are eminently readable. As Bulfinch wrote, "Without a knowledge of mythology much of the elegant literature of our own language cannot be understood and appreciated. . . . Our book is an attempt to solve this problem, by telling the stories of mythology in such a manner as to make them a source of amusement."
Thomas Bulfinch, in his day job, was a clerk in the Merchant's Bank of Boston, an undemanding position that afforded him ample leisure time in which to pursue his other interests. In addition to serving as secretary of the Boston Society of Natural History, he thoroughly researched the myths and legends and copiously cross-referenced them with literature and art. As such, the myths are an indispensable guide to the cultural values of the nineteenth century; however, it is the vigor of the stories themselves that returns generation after generation to Bulfinch.
From the Trade Paperback edition. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cheyenne'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Chosen Primate: Human Nature and Cultural Diversity'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Contemporary Cultural Anthropology'
Contemporary Cultural Anthropology, 5/e examines the changes in anthropology and the world at large, providing discussions of new theories and advances in communication and technology. Because the text examines cultures from an ecological perspective, ethnographic examples illustrate how humans try to overcome the problems they face in adapting to their ever-changing surroundings. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Culture: The Anthropologists' Account'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Deadly Decisions'
Temperance Brennan is a forensic anthropologist with one of the longest commutes in fiction--from North Carolina to Montreal. She works in both places, and in this third outing (after Déjà Dead and Death du Jour) she manages to make a riveting (if a bit too coincidental) connection between a skull in Montreal and the partial skeleton of a teenager--dead since 1984--in North Carolina. Linking them is a 9-year-old girl shot on a Montreal street, the victim of a war among members of an outlaw motorcycle gang in eastern Canada. Another piece of the puzzle is provided by Tempe's visiting nephew, who is fascinated by the biker culture and is drawn into the mystery Tempe's trying to solve:
"Know anything about Slick?" asked Kit.The science is as accurate as the author can make it. Kathy Reichs's own background--as forensic anthropologist for the chief medical officer of North Carolina and director of forensic anthropology for the province of Quebec--ensures verisimilitude of place and procedure and creates a believable milieu. Fans of Patricia Cornwall will enjoy this solidly written suspense thriller, while those of a less scientific bent, who don't mind a somewhat lagging pace, will skip the details and concentrate on Reichs's fluid writing. All readers will enjoy the way Tempe puts the pieces of the puzzle, as well as the bodies, together. --Jane Adams [via]"He doesn't look like the pick of the litter."
"Yeah, even from that motley litter." He flipped the picture. "Heck, this guy croaked when I was 3 years old."
There were two more photos of Slick's funeral, both taken from a distance, one at the cemetery, the other on the church steps. Many of the mourners wore caps riding their eyebrows, and bandannas stretched to cover their mouths.
"The one you've got must be from a private collection." I handed Kit the other pictures. "I think these two are police surveillance photos. Seems the bereaved weren't anxious to show their faces."
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Eagle's Gift'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality, Culture, and Philosophy'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The First Sex: The Natural Talents of Women and How They Are Changing the World'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Forbidden Experiment'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Great Jobs for Anthropology Majors'
"Great Jobs for Anthropology Majors" is a big help to students entering the working world. They discover common career paths of graduates in their field, get help assessing their individual talents and skills, and learn what steps need to be taken to land a job. Every aspect of identifying and getting started in a career is covered, from exploring options and making a smooth transition from college to career to conducting an effective job search. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gypsies'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium'
First of the widely celebrated and sumptuously illustrated series, this book reveals in intimate detail what life was really like in the ancient world. Behind the vast panorama of the pagan Roman empire, the reader discovers the intimate daily lives of citizens and slavesfrom concepts of manhood and sexuality to marriage and the family, the roles of women, chastity and contraception, techniques of childbirth, homosexuality, religion, the meaning of virtue, and the separation of private and public spaces.
The emergence of Christianity in the West and the triumph of Christian morality with its emphasis on abstinence, celibacy, and austerity is startlingly contrasted with the profane and undisciplined private life of the Byzantine Empire. Using illuminating motifs, the authors weave a rich, colorful fabric ornamented with the results of new research and the broad interpretations that only masters of the subject can provide.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium'
First of the widely celebrated and sumptuously illustrated series, this book reveals in intimate detail what life was really like in the ancient world. Behind the vast panorama of the pagan Roman empire, the reader discovers the intimate daily lives of citizens and slavesfrom concepts of manhood and sexuality to marriage and the family, the roles of women, chastity and contraception, techniques of childbirth, homosexuality, religion, the meaning of virtue, and the separation of private and public spaces.
The emergence of Christianity in the West and the triumph of Christian morality with its emphasis on abstinence, celibacy, and austerity is startlingly contrasted with the profane and undisciplined private life of the Byzantine Empire. Using illuminating motifs, the authors weave a rich, colorful fabric ornamented with the results of new research and the broad interpretations that only masters of the subject can provide.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World'
All the mystery, earthiness and romance of the Middle Ages are captured in this panorama of everyday life. The evolving concepts of intimacy are explored--from the semi-obscure eleventh century through the first stirrings of the Renaissance world in the fifteenth century. Color and black-and-white illustrations. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Human Animal'
The view of people, their places and things from a liberal perspective. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Humankind Emerging'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Intertwined Lives : Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and Their Circle'
A uniquely revealing biography of two eminent twentieth century American women. Close friends for much of their lives, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead met at Barnard College in 1922, when Mead was a student, Benedict a teacher. They became sexual partners (though both married), and pioneered in the then male-dominated discipline of anthropology. They championed racial and sexual equality and cultural relativity despite the generally racist, xenophobic, and homophobic tenor of their era. Meads best-selling Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) and Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), and Benedicts Patterns of Culture (1934), Race (1940), and The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), were landmark studies that ensured the lasting prominence and influence of their authors in the field of anthropology and beyond.
With unprecedented access to the complete archives of the two womenincluding hundreds of letters opened to scholars in 2001Lois Banner examines the impact of their difficult childhoods and the relationship between them in the context of their circle of family, friends, husbands, lovers, and colleagues, as well as the calamitous events of their time. She shows how Benedict inadvertently exposed Mead to charges of professional incompetence, discloses the serious errors New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman made in his famed attack on Meads research on Samoa, and reveals what happened in New Guinea when Mead and colleagues engaged in a ritual aimed at overturning all gender and sexual boundaries.
In this illuminating and innovative work, Banner has given us the most detailed, balanced, and informative portrait of Mead and Benedictindividually and togetherthat we have had. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Island of the Colorblind'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lonely African'
Trade Paperback. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Margaret Mead: A Life'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mating'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Maya, the Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization'
The civilization of the Maya in Mexico and Central America is one of the world's most intriguing archaeological puzzles. At one time a sophisticated civilization, around 800 A.D., cities were abandoned, temples left unfinished, and a powerful culture vanished. Charles Gallenkamp unfolds the many wonders of this lost world and provides a rare look at the exciting explorations that are uncovering many of its long-buried secrets. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mismeasure of Woman'
When "man is the measure of all things," woman is forever trying to measure up. In this enlightening book, Carol Tavris unmasks the widespread but invisible custom -- pervasive in the social sciences, medicine, law, and history -- of treating men as the normal standard, women as abnormal. Tavris expands our vision of normalcy by illuminating the similarities between women and men and showing that the real differences lie not in gender, but in power, resources, and life experiences. Winner of the American Association for Applied and Preventive Psychology's Distinguished Media Contribution Award [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mountain of Names: A History of the Human Family'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mountain of Names: An Informal History of Kinship'
History, Anthropology [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Nations and Nationalism'
Nationalism is one of the most powerful forces in the modern world, yet it is surprisingly little studied and only imperfectly understood, either by its adherents or its opponents. Its irruption into the modern world is often explained as a resurgence of primitive, atavistic instincts, or as a delusion fostered by a few theoreticians, politicians or propagandists.
The present volume interprets nationalism in terms of its social roots, which it locates in industrial social organization. A society that aims for affluence and economic growth, Professor Gellner argues, depends on innovation, occupational mobility, mass media, universal literacy, and education in a shared, standard idiom. Taken together these transform the relationship between culture and the state. The functioning of the society depends on an all-embracing educational system, tied to one culture and protected by a state identified with that culture. The principle one state, one culture makes itself felt, and political units which do not conform to it feel the strain in the form of nationalist activity. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Neanderthal'
Not since Jurassic Park has a novel so enthralled readers everywhere. Now, enter the world of Neanderthal ... The expedition of the century...uncovers the find of the millennium... Neanderthal . In the remote mountains of central Asia, an eminent Harvard archeologist discovers something extraordinary. He sends a cryptic message to two colleagues. But then, he disappears. Matt Mattison and Susan Arnot-- once lovers, now academic rivals-- are going where few humans have ever walked, looking for a relic band of creatures that have existed for over 40,000 years, that possess powers man can only imagine, and that are about to change the face of civilization forever. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Of Two Minds: The Growing Disorder in American Psychiatry'
Is the fight between cures worse than the disease? The fairly comfortable truce between psychotherapy and drug treatment for mental illness started eroding a few years ago, when the latter's bottom-line efficiency made it the preferred option for HMOs and many other health care providers. The often-sharp division between these two methods is highlighted in Of Two Minds, an insightful anthropological assessment of psychiatric training in America by University of California-San Diego's T.M. Luhrmann. She studied with psychiatrists in training, visited inpatient and outpatient facilities, and interviewed scores of doctors and patients to reveal the craft of a strange and misunderstood profession. Neither opponents nor defenders of the mental health establishment will find unqualified support from the author's careful evaluation. While she states from experience that she believes mental illness is real and in many cases of biological origin, she also despairs at the divide between research and treatment.
Luhrmann is strongly sympathetic with her subjects, whether physicians, patients, or instructors. She paints a portrait of harrowing training for young doctors and hellish experiences before, during, and after treatment for those seeking relief. She does find much to recommend both drug and talk therapies, though current research suggests that combining them is more effective for more patients than either one alone. In closing, Luhrmann warns that we are in danger of dehumanizing the mentally ill by emphasizing cost-effective pharmaceutical management of symptoms over interpersonal relationships. Of Two Minds has the depth and complexity necessary to match its subject and the warmth to reach its readers. It's essential reading for anyone involved or interested in mental health. --Rob Lightner [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Optimism: The Biology of Hope'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Power of Silence'
Millions of readers worldwide have treasured the visionary brilliance of Carlos Castaneda, who first explore the world of the Yaqui Indian sorcerer in The Teachings of don Juan. Now, at last, don Juan returns in The Power of Silence -- wise, infuriating, capable or working miracles and playing practical jokes, but always seeking the wisdom of the warrior.
The Power of Silence is Castaneda's most astonishing book to date -- a brilliant flash of knowledge that illuminates the far reaches of the human mind. Through don Juan's mesmerizing stories, the true meaning of sorcery and magic is finally revealed. Honed in the desert of Sonora, the visions of don Juan give us the vital secrets of belief and self-realization that are transcendental and valid for us all. It is Castaneda's unique genius to show us that all wisdom, strength, and power lie within ourselves -- unleashed with marvelous energy and imaginative force in the teachings of don Juan -- and in the writings of his famous pupil, Carlos Castaneda [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Power of Silence: Further Lessons of Don Juan'
Millions of readers worldwide have treasured the visionary brilliance of Carlos Castaneda, who first explore the world of the Yaqui Indian sorcerer in The Teachings of don Juan. Now, at last, don Juan returns in The Power of Silence -- wise, infuriating, capable or working miracles and playing practical jokes, but always seeking the wisdom of the warrior.
The Power of Silence is Castaneda's most astonishing book to date -- a brilliant flash of knowledge that illuminates the far reaches of the human mind. Through don Juan's mesmerizing stories, the true meaning of sorcery and magic is finally revealed. Honed in the desert of Sonora, the visions of don Juan give us the vital secrets of belief and self-realization that are transcendental and valid for us all. It is Castaneda's unique genius to show us that all wisdom, strength, and power lie within ourselves -- unleashed with marvelous energy and imaginative force in the teachings of don Juan -- and in the writings of his famous pupil, Carlos Castaneda [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Principles of Human Evolution'
Principles of Human Evolution presents an in-depth introduction to paleoanthropology and the study of human evolution. Focusing on the fundamentals of evolutionary theory and how these apply to ecological, molecular genetic, paleontological and archeological approaches to important questions in the field, this timely textbook will help students gain a perspective on human evolution in the context of modern biological thinking.
The second edition of this successful text features the addition of Robert Foley, a leading researcher in Human Evolutionary Studies, to the writing team. Strong emphasis on evolutionary theory, ecology and behavior and scores of new examples reflect the latest evolutionary theories and recent archaeological finds. More than a simple update, the new edition is organized by issue rather than chronology, integrating behavior, adaptation and anatomy. A new design and new figure references make this edition more accessible for students and instructors.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Reindeer People: Living With Animals And Spirits in Siberia'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Samba'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Savages'
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Second Sex'
In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir posed questions many men, and women, had yet to ponder when the book was released in 1953. "One wonders if women still exist, if they will always exist, whether or not it is desirable that they should ...," she says in this comprehensive treatise on women. She weaves together history, philosophy, economics, biology, and a host of other disciplines to show women's place in the world and to postulate on the power of sexuality. This is a powerful piece of writing in a time before "feminism" was even a phrase, much less a movement. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Second Sex'
In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir posed questions many men, and women, had yet to ponder when the book was released in 1953. "One wonders if women still exist, if they will always exist, whether or not it is desirable that they should ...," she says in this comprehensive treatise on women. She weaves together history, philosophy, economics, biology, and a host of other disciplines to show women's place in the world and to postulate on the power of sexuality. This is a powerful piece of writing in a time before "feminism" was even a phrase, much less a movement. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Singer of Tales'
This 40th anniversary edition of Albert Lord's classic work includes a unique enhancement: a CD containing the original audio recordings of all the passages of heroic songs quoted in the book; a video publication of the kinescopic filming of the most valued of the singers; and selected photographs taken during Milman Parry's collecting trips in the Balkans.
Parry began recording and studying a live tradition of oral narrative poetry in order to find an answer to the age-old Homeric Question: How had the author of the Iliad and Odyssey composed these two monumental epic poems at the very start of Europe's literary tradition? Parry's, and with him Lord's, enduring contribution--set forth in Lord's The Singer of Tales--was to demonstrate the process by which oral poets compose.
Now reissued with a new Introduction and an invaluable audio and visual record, this widely influential book is newly enriched to better serve everyone interested in the art and craft of oral literature.
[via]› Find signed collectible books: 'The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, And Body'
The propensity to make music is the most mysterious, wonderful, and neglected feature of humankind: this is where Steven Mithen began, drawing together strands from archaeology, anthropology, psychology, neuroscience--and, of course, musicology--to explain why we are so compelled to make and hear music. But music could not be explained without addressing language, and could not be accounted for without understanding the evolution of the human body and mind. Thus Mithen arrived at the wildly ambitious project that unfolds in this book: an exploration of music as a fundamental aspect of the human condition, encoded into the human genome during the evolutionary history of our species.
Music is the language of emotion, common wisdom tells us. In The Singing Neanderthals, Mithen introduces us to the science that might support such popular notions. With equal parts scientific rigor and charm, he marshals current evidence about social organization, tool and weapon technologies, hunting and scavenging strategies, habits and brain capacity of all our hominid ancestors, from australopithecines to Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis and Neanderthals to Homo sapiens--and comes up with a scenario for a shared musical and linguistic heritage. Along the way he weaves a tapestry of cognitive and expressive worlds--alive with vocalized sound, communal mimicry, sexual display, and rhythmic movement--of various species.
The result is a fascinating work--and a succinct riposte to those, like Steven Pinker, who have dismissed music as a functionless evolutionary byproduct.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sociobiology: The New Synthesis'
E.O. Wilson defines sociobiology as "the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior," the central theoretical problem of which is the question of how behaviors that seemingly contradict the principles of natural selection, such as altruism, can develop. Sociobiology: A New Synthesis, Wilson's first attempt to outline the new field of study, was first published in 1975 and called for a fairly revolutionary update to the so-called Modern Synthesis of evolutionary biology. Sociobiology as a new field of study demanded the active inclusion of sociology, the social sciences, and the humanities in evolutionary theory. Often criticized for its apparent message of "biological destiny," Sociobiology set the stage for such controversial works as Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene and Wilson's own Consilience.
Sociobiology defines such concepts as society, individual, population, communication, and regulation. It attempts to explain, biologically, why groups of animals behave the way they do when finding food or shelter, confronting enemies, or getting along with one another. Wilson seeks to explain how group selection, altruism, hierarchies, and sexual selection work in populations of animals, and to identify evolutionary trends and sociobiological characteristics of all animal groups, up to and including man. The insect sections of the books are particularly interesting, given Wilson's status as the world's most famous entomologist.
It is fair to say that as an ecological strategy eusociality has been overwhelmingly successful. It is useful to think of an insect colony as a diffuse organism, weighing anywhere from less than a gram to as much as a kilogram and possessing from about a hundred to a million or more tiny mouths.
It's when Wilson starts talking about human beings that the furor starts. Feminists have been among the strongest critics of the work, arguing that humans are not slaves to a biological destiny, forever locked in "primitive" behavior patterns without the ability to reason past our biochemical nature. Like The Origin of Species, Sociobiology has forced many biologists and social scientists to reassess their most cherished notions of how animals work. --Therese Littleton [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sociobiology: The New Synthesis'
E.O. Wilson defines sociobiology as "the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior," the central theoretical problem of which is the question of how behaviors that seemingly contradict the principles of natural selection, such as altruism, can develop. Sociobiology: A New Synthesis, Wilson's first attempt to outline the new field of study, was first published in 1975 and called for a fairly revolutionary update to the so-called Modern Synthesis of evolutionary biology. Sociobiology as a new field of study demanded the active inclusion of sociology, the social sciences, and the humanities in evolutionary theory. Often criticized for its apparent message of "biological destiny," Sociobiology set the stage for such controversial works as Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene and Wilson's own Consilience.
Sociobiology defines such concepts as society, individual, population, communication, and regulation. It attempts to explain, biologically, why groups of animals behave the way they do when finding food or shelter, confronting enemies, or getting along with one another. Wilson seeks to explain how group selection, altruism, hierarchies, and sexual selection work in populations of animals, and to identify evolutionary trends and sociobiological characteristics of all animal groups, up to and including man. The insect sections of the books are particularly interesting, given Wilson's status as the world's most famous entomologist.
It is fair to say that as an ecological strategy eusociality has been overwhelmingly successful. It is useful to think of an insect colony as a diffuse organism, weighing anywhere from less than a gram to as much as a kilogram and possessing from about a hundred to a million or more tiny mouths.
It's when Wilson starts talking about human beings that the furor starts. Feminists have been among the strongest critics of the work, arguing that humans are not slaves to a biological destiny, forever locked in "primitive" behavior patterns without the ability to reason past our biochemical nature. Like The Origin of Species, Sociobiology has forced many biologists and social scientists to reassess their most cherished notions of how life works. --Therese Littleton [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World'
A stunningly original work of ecological philosophy documenting the historical and current effects of language on our perception of and interaction with nature. Utne Magazine recently voted Abram one of "The 100 People Who Will Change the World." And if this book is read as widely as it deserves, that prediction may come to pass. Very Highly Recommended. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Stone Age Present: How Evolution Has Shaped Modern Life-From Sex, Violence, and Language to Emotions, Morals, and Communities'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us About Human Social Evolution'
How did we become the linguistic, cultured, and hugely successful apes that we are? Our closest relatives--the other mentally complex and socially skilled primates--offer tantalizing clues. In Tree of Origin nine of the world's top primate experts read these clues and compose the most extensive picture to date of what the behavior of monkeys and apes can tell us about our own evolution as a species.
It has been nearly fifteen years since a single volume addressed the issue of human evolution from a primate perspective, and in that time we have witnessed explosive growth in research on the subject. Tree of Origin gives us the latest news about bonobos, the "make love not war" apes who behave so dramatically unlike chimpanzees. We learn about the tool traditions and social customs that set each ape community apart. We see how DNA analysis is revolutionizing our understanding of paternity, intergroup migration, and reproductive success. And we confront intriguing discoveries about primate hunting behavior, politics, cognition, diet, and the evolution of language and intelligence that challenge claims of human uniqueness in new and subtle ways.
Tree of Origin provides the clearest glimpse yet of the apelike ancestor who left the forest and began the long journey toward modern humanity.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture'
By the author of Tao of Physics. Capra shows how the revolution in physics foreshadows a revolution in all the sciences. Hardcover. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior'
In Unto Others, philosopher Elliott Sober and biologist David Sloan Wilson bravely attempt to reconcile altruism, both evolutionary and psychological, with the scientific discoveries that seem to portray nature as red in tooth and claw. The first half of the book deals with the evolutionary objection to altruism. For altruistic behavior to be produced by natural selection, it must be possible for natural selection to act on groups--but conventional wisdom holds that group selection was conclusively debunked by George Williams in Adaptation and Natural Selection. Sober and Wilson nevertheless defend group selection, instructively reviewing the arguments against it and citing important work that relies on it. They then discuss group selection in human evolution, testing their conclusions against the anthropological literature.
In the second half of the book, the question is whether any desires are truly altruistic. Sober and Wilson painstakingly examine psychological evidence and philosophical arguments for the existence of altruism, ultimately concluding that neither psychology nor philosophy is likely to decide the question. Fortunately, evolutionary biology comes to the rescue. Sober and Wilson speculate that creatures with truly altruistic desires are reproductively fitter than creatures without--altruists, in short, make better parents than do egoists.
Rich in information and insight, Unto Others is a book that will be seriously considered by biologists, philosophers, anthropologists, and psychologists alike. The interested amateur may find it difficult in places but worth the effort overall. --Glenn Branch [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Waiting for the Weekend'
[This is the MP3CD audiobook format.]
[Read by Wanda McCaddon]
Explore the history and the nature of the time we consider ''our own''.
''We work,'' Aristotle wrote, ''in order to have leisure.'' Today, this is still true. But is the leisure that Aristotle spoke of--the freedom to do nothing--the same as the leisure we look forward to each weekend?
There have always been breaks from the routine of work--taboo days, market days, public festivals, holy days--we couldn't survive without them. In Waiting for the Weekend, Witold Rybczynski unfolds the history and evolution of leisure time in Western civilization, from Aristotle, through the Middle Ages, to the present. Along the way, he explores how the psychological needs that leisure time seeks to fulfill have changed as the nature of work has changed. [via]
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