Anthropology Books
Harvard University Press In Praise of Commercial Culture
Book SynopsisCowen argues that the capitalist market economy is a vital but underappreciated institutional framework for supporting a variety of artistic visions. His philosophy stands in opposition to the cultural pessimism of conservatives, neoconservatives, the Frankfurt School, and some versions of the political correctness and multiculturalist movements.Trade ReviewIn Praise of Commercial Culture by Tyler Cowen…is a treasure trove of insights about artistic genres, styles and trends, dexterously illuminated through economic analysis. Cowen’s main argument is that capitalism—by fostering alternate modes of financial support and multiple market niches, vast wealth and technological innovation—is the best ally the arts could have. -- Andrew Stark * Times Literary Supplement *Penetrating… Cowen calmly and carefully argues that a market economy—in other words, modern capitalism, attentive above all to supply and demand—is the single best guarantor of vigorous culture… What makes In Praise of Commercial Culture such a pleasure to read is partly Cowen’s humility—he writes softly—and partly the care and acuity with which he draws out his argument… Cowen’s real intelligence—the depth of thought that makes this such an interesting book—shows itself when he [notes]: ‘Governments often support creativity most effectively by providing a large number of jobs where individuals are not expected to work very hard’… [This is a] fascinating book. -- Bruce Serafin * Vancouver Sun *In a wide-ranging, brilliant, and thought-provoking book, Tyler Cowen has come to the cultural defense of capitalism. He argues that the record of free markets in supporting culture can stand comparison with that of any other system, from feudalism to communism… Cowen is amazingly learned, both in scholarship about the arts and in the arts themselves. He moves effortlessly from painting to music to literature. He also navigates skillfully between high and low culture, whether he is comparing the great piano virtuoso Franz Liszt to a contemporary stage performer like Prince, or showing how the second part of Don Quixote follows the same logic as do movie sequels like The Empire Strikes Back or Terminator 2… This is a very important and original book. -- Paul Cantor * American Enterprise *In Praise of Commercial Culture is a profoundly important book: In a historical moment when even socialists grant the efficiency and efficacy of markets in delivering a dizzying array of goods and services to people (and an increasing number of conservatives lament the same), there is still a great deal of resistance to applying a similar analysis to the production and consumption of culture… Cowen’s book is a seminal effort toward understanding that cultural matters, like other forms of human activity, benefit greatly from the decentralization, innovation, and feedback mechanisms endemic to market orders. In Praise of Commercial Culture is rich in nuance yet highly accessible to the general reader… By contextualizing pessimism within a larger dynamic of cultural growth and by showing the beneficial effects of markets on art, In Praise of Commercial Culture remaps the debate in a way that should greatly inform all future arguments. -- Nick Gillespie * Reason *This book is such a delight that it’s hard to believe it was written by an economist. It exudes such common sense (another unbelievability where economists are concerned) that, even when it fails to persuade entirely, the lapses invite dialogue, not dismissal… [This book] is neither an Ayn Randian paean to ‘The Artist as Businessman’ nor a dry economic analysis in which ‘cultural production’ becomes one more abstract input to the GDP. Mr. Cowen combines economic perspective with the skills of a cultural historian and the aesthetic sensibilities of a writer who cherishes his own cultural experiences. -- Philip Gold * Washington Times *A masterful performance… Cowen has provided a marvelously exuberant counterblast to the wide-spread view that in our philistine, materialist world the arts are going to hell in a handbasket. They are not. They are alive and well, and thriving as never before. Cowen goes a long way towards explaining why. For anyone with any interest in the history, funding and encouragement of the arts, In Praise of Commercial Culture is not to be missed. -- Winston Fletcher * Times Higher Education Supplement *[Tyler Cowen] argues that market forces stimulate the production of culture, high and low, and that far from homogenizing taste, they tend to produce art that is more specialized and diverse than it would be otherwise. In three especially lively chapters, Cowen traces the markets for the written word (where the printing press has been around for centuries), music (where recording technology became available only relatively recently), and painting (where reproductive technology counts for much less)… The picture of the art markets that emerges from In Praise of Commercial Culture is a reassuring one… It is less possible than ever before to create the monopoly on commercial culture that is the objective of totalitarian states. Within wide bands of fad and fashion, people are going to decide for themselves what they like. -- David Warsh * Boston Sunday Globe *Unlike critics…who laud the free market but have suspicions about the pop culture it spawns, or critics…who love pop culture’s vibrancy but disdain capitalist markets, Mr. Cowen thinks that American-style commerce and culture come awfully close to representing the best of all possible worlds… Key to his argument is the notion that cultural markets are not zero-sum. Even if the markets are serving up pabulum to the masses, that doesn’t prevent Mario Vargas Llosa or Salman Rushdie from reaching an audience. The relevant question isn’t how many more books Tom Clancy sells than Rushdie, Mr. Cowen insists, but whether serious novelists can reach the audiences that are hungry for them. In other words, the efficient distribution of books at every level of taste is the sign of the healthiest kind of market… Mr. Cowen also takes issue with the ‘winner-take-all’ theory of cultural markets…[which] suggests that cultural markets favor lowest-common-denominator blockbusters…and that more artistic works get shunted aside as studios and publishers seek the next giant payday. Mr. Cowen’s response is that trite best sellers may generate more cultural noise than smaller works, but that if you cut through the noise, smaller works are still thriving. -- Christopher Shea * Chronicle of Higher Education *I have been doused by cold water, and by an economist at that. In Praise of Commercial Culture proclaims that a thriving capitalist society sustains the arts better than any other form of social organisation… As with the debate in the US over the National Endowment for the Arts, the row over Britain’s Arts Council never goes away. The belief is that high culture would fade away if state subsidies were withdrawn. We are unwilling to place our cultural bets on the finer impulses of the super-rich. We prefer, irrationally to leave it to officials to decide who is worthy. Creative capitalism does it better. -- Joe Rogaly * Financial Times *Capitalism is better than an other ‘ism’ at delivering the goods—food, cars, shoes, and the other materials of everyday life. But few people associate capitalism with culture. In fact, many see the two as antithetical. Tyler Cowen, an art-loving economist, disagrees. Far from hurting culture, Cowen argues that capitalism nurtures it. Precisely because capitalism delivers the goods, Cowen writes, people have the means to buy books, paintings, and other forms of art. Improvements in production and marketing, for example, as well as increased wealth, have made books available to the masses. In 1760 a common laborer has to work two days to earn enough money to buy a cheap schoolbook; today the cost of a paperback is slightly more than the hourly minimum wage. -- David R. Henderson * Fortune *[Cowen] argues persuasively that literature, Western art, and music ‘from Bach to the Beatles’ flourish best when businesses are profitable and opportunities for innovative artists to find customers are multiplied… As with the debate in the US over the National Endowment for the Arts, the row over Britain’s Arts Council never goes away. The belief is that high culture would fade away if state subsidies were withdrawn. We are unwilling to place our cultural bets on the finer impulses of the super-rich. We prefer, irrationally, to leave it to officials to decide who is worthy. Creative capitalism does it better. -- Joe Rogaly * Financial Review [Australia] *By writing In Praise of Commercial Culture, Tyler Cowen gives his readers a clearly reasoned argument for cultural optimism, and, in the process, gives individuals…confidence to substantively critique Americans’ tendency toward grossly underestimating the quality of our artistic output in the latter half of the twentieth century. -- Craig Farmer * Fodder: The Newsletter of the Hungry Mind Bookstore *[A] provocative and valuable book. -- Alan W. Bock * Liberty *The view that art should sup with commerce only with the help of a very long spoon is the extension of a popular view of artistic endeavor—that the best artists, musicians and writers are outsiders, pushed by poverty, ill-health or an oppressive state to create… Mr. Cowen won’t have a bar of such pessimism. He argues that the best artists have mostly been in the thick of life…writing, painting or composing to the dictates of the market. Commercialisation, in fact, is just what art needs and Adam Smith was right: prose and poetry flow naturally from the growth of prosperity… Moreover, wealth and financial security give artists scope to reject societal values; a large market lowers the cost of creative pursuits and makes market niches easier to find; increasing wealth means better and longer life expectancy, which helps artists realise their potential. -- Graham Adams * New Zealand National Business Review *Cowen has given us a breath of fresh air in these so-called ‘culture wars’… [His] outstanding arguments and penetrating diagnosis convince me that observers from left to right are on the wrong track with ‘cultural pessimism’… I cannot recommend the book more highly. It should be read as a reasoned account of how culture develops and progresses in an atmosphere of personal freedom and market capitalism. More importantly, perhaps, Cowen’s book casts some much-needed light on the enemies of that vital process. * Public Choice *Jesse Helms and Karen Finley: Take note of Tyler Cowen. The George Mason University economist is an avid arts warrior, but one who rises above the reactionary postures that have come to define the debate over arts funding… [His] new book, In Praise of Commercial Culture, argues that free markets, unbridled by government, produce the best environments for creative expression… ‘Ninety percent of what is released is usually junk,’ he observes, ‘but junk is just a symptom of the riches we enjoy.’ -- Louis Jacobson * Washington City Paper *Economist Tyler Cowen has a contrarian message: Pop is good. His book In Praise of Commercial Culture outlines his case for cultural optimism. The progress of democratic capitalism, he says, gives people time and affluence to make and enjoy culture… Mr. Cowen is best when he skewers the popular notion that great artists are poor bohemians who live on the margins of society. * World *This book is full of surprises. It not only informed me wonderfully, it changed my mind. The subject is irresistible, and the analysis, solidly based in history, is compelling. After you enjoy reading it, you can enjoy telling your friends about it. -- Thomas C. Schelling, author of The Strategy of Conflict, Micromotives and Macrobehavior, and Choice and ConsequenceIn Praise of Commercial Culture is a lively and well-informed defense of the values of an unsubsidized free market for artists… I learned more from this book than from so many others that argue the standard view. As a bonus, the book is a pleasure to read. -- Mark Blaug, author of Economic Theory in Retrospect and The Methodology of EconomicsAt a time when critics on both the left and the right decry the degradation of the arts and call for censorship, we need reminding that the very market processes responsible for offensive art have fueled unprecedented artistic diversity, generated technologies to preserve masterpieces, and brought to the masses arts that were once just privileges of the rich. Drawing on vast literatures and using delightfully parsimonious arguments, Tyler Cowen rises to the challenge. Balanced and sensible, yet also provocative and entertaining throughout, In Praise of Commercial Culture will give pause to anyone who thinks that the golden age of the arts has passed. -- Timur Kuran, author of Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference FalsificationTable of Contents* Introduction * The Arts in a Market Economy * The Market for the Written Word * The Wealthy City as a Center for Western Art * The Developing Market for Music: From Bach to the Beatles * Why Cultural Pessimism? * Notes * Index
£25.16
Harvard University, The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies The Politics of Ethnicity
Book SynopsisThe book provides a valuable overview of current problems facing indigenous peoples in their relation with national states in Latin America, from the highlands of Mexico to the jungles of Brazil. The traditional, sometimes centuries old, relations between states and indigenous peoples are now changing and being rediscussed.Trade ReviewThe result of a conference held Harvard in 2000, this collection of essays explores the contemporary impact of indigenous organizations and indigenista policies in Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil… This is an excellent volume that explains the variety of routes taken by the ‘return of the Indian’ in nine Latin-American national contexts. Predictions made in 2000 when the papers were given have proved quite prescient and the collection will be much used in teaching and research. -- Guy Thomson * Bulletin of Spanish Studies *[T]hese timely essays help explain the contradictory process by which recent indigenous uprisings have drawn so much attention on the international stage, while concurrently enjoying so few improvements within their respective nation states. As a reflection of the cutting edge of scholarly approaches to its field, this collection will become an important teaching tool for anthropological and historical courses specifically focused on indigenous resistance and a comprehensive complementary source to Latin American studies in general. -- Rene Harder HorstThe striking, world-wide, self-assertion by indigenous peoples is, surely, a most notable feature of our ‘turn-of-the-millennium.’ Nowhere is it more striking than in Latin America where assimilationist ideologies—whether violent and predatory or populist and peaceful—were recently so hegemonic. Nowhere is this great transformation examined with such originality, comprehensiveness, analytical care and nuance as here, in The Politics of Ethnicity. -- James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Anthropology and Political Science, Yale UniversityProfessor Maybury-Lewis and his colleagues provide the reader with a valuable analysis and a useful tool for the understanding of ongoing conflicts between indigenous peoples and states in various Latin American countries. A broad overview of the issues ranges from the local level to their international implications. This volume presents a clear picture of one of the least well-known yet most significant developments in the recent history of a number of Latin American societies. -- Rodolfo Stavenhagen, Colegio de México, Special Rapporteur on the Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Peoples, U.N. Human Rights CommissionThis timely book is a sweeping anthropological vision of contemporary relations between the indigenous peoples of Latin America and the states that contain them. The resulting picture is an indictment for most Latin American nation states except for specific governments that have been able to respond to well-organized indigenous social and political movements. However, one central fact remains undisputed: the Latin American indigenous movement has provoked a most radical questioning of the models of nation-state, democracy, and development since the expansion of anarchistic and socialist theories in the late nineteenth century. -- Stefano Varese, Professor of Native American Studies, University of California, Davis
£18.86
Harvard University, The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies Philanthropy and Social Change in Latin America
Book SynopsisLatin America is a profoundly philanthropic region with deeply rooted traditions of solidarity with the less fortunate. This volume brings together groundbreaking perspectives on such diverse themes as corporate philanthropy, immigrant networks, and new grant-making and operating foundations with corporate, family, and community origins.
£18.86
Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies Poetic and Performative Memory in Ancient Greece
Book SynopsisThe Ancient Greeks not only spoke of time unfolding in a specific space, but also projected the past upon the future in order to make it active in the social practice of the present. This book shows how the Ancient Greeks’ collective memory was based on a remarkable faculty for the creation of ritual and narrative symbols.
£16.10
Harvard University Press The Antidepressant Era
Book SynopsisThe first complete account of the phenomenon of antidepressants, this authoritative, highly readable book relates how depression, a disease only recently deemed too rare to merit study, has become one of the most common disorders of our day—and a booming business.Trade ReviewDavid Healy's book focuses on the discovery and development of antidepressants and provides a fascinating insight into the history of this field. He skillfully interweaves the account of the roles played by the key scientists and clinicians with the powerful influence of pharmaceutical companies... The antidepressant era represents one of the seminal events in the social and cultural history of the latter half of the twentieth century. This book is written in an individual and engaging style and the author reveals a deep knowledge of his subject; he has his own firm views but does not force them upon the reader. I found it a compelling read and hope that it will reach a wide audience. -- Leslie Iversen * Nature *As a history, it is brilliant and brilliantly written, tracing the introduction of antidepressants, which, along with the first antibiotics and antihypertensives, created a therapeutic revolution just after World War II. These developments brought health to the center of global politics and created the possibility of a common language that crossed ethnic, race, and class barriers. The paths traced begin in antiquity. Healy discusses concepts of disease and illness beginning with Hippocrates; the isolation of the tubercle bacillus by Robert Koch; the beginning of the pharmaceutical companies; (In 1804, there were 90 patent medicines listed. By 1857, the list had grown to 1,500); the discovery of the power of marketing with aspirin; the 1951 bill which gave the FDA power to decide which medicines should be made available by prescription; and the 1962 Kefauver-Harris amendment which charged the FDA with establishing the efficacy of over-the-counter as well as prescription drugs. The role of NIMH in testing the new psychotropic drugs, the discovery and testing of the antidepressants and the science developed to facilitate testing are well described. Since many of the scientists who participated in the antidepressant revolution were still around for interviewing, the material is vivid and personal. -- Myrna M. Weissman * New England Journal of Medicine *In the past five years [David Healy] has emerged as the leading international authority on the history of psychopharmacology...Healy's modest endnotes reveal that he has participated in numerous key events, and that he knows personally many of the main actors in the story...The body of Healy's book is a clear, detailed and highly informative reconstruction of the major lines of clinical and laboratory research that have produced modern psychiatric pharmacotherapy...Healy is well-informed...Without slighting the science, he manages to describe [major developments] in an admirably readable narrative...The best remedies of all, however, may be a historically informed medical profession and a biomedically enlightened public. David Healy's impressive and fascinating book is a means to these ends. -- Mark S. Micale * Times Literary Supplement *David Healy is one of the most remarkable figures in contemporary psychiatry. He combines the skills of an historian with a training in laboratory psychopharmacology, a research interest in psychopathology, and an encyclopedic knowledge of the psychotherapies. Throughout the past decade he has published books and papers on subjects as diverse as phenomenology, nosology, hysteria, and psychopharmacology...Healy's trilogy [The Psychopharmacologists,The Psychopharmacologists II, and The Antidepressant Era] is a major achievement: its importance goes beyond psychiatry and psychopharmacology to embrace the whole of medicine. These books represent a quantum leap in understanding the processes that shape therapeutic innovation in clinical practice. Work of this revolutionary scope comes along infrequently--perhaps once in a decade. -- Bruce G.Charlton * Journal of Medicine of the Royal Society *The story Healy brilliantly recounts is one of increasing regulation of psychopharmaceuticals by governments...Healy's proposal will strike some as unscientific and others as humane, for he calls for the deregulation of psychoactive drugs, thereby putting control of mental illness back in the people's hands and forcing physicians to refocus their efforts on cultivating an empathic clinical encounter. In doing so, as Healy rightly claims, patients are better served and mental illness is better understood. -- Robert A. Crouch * Religious Studies Reviews *Well-written and thoroughly researched, the book provides an excellent overview of the history of psychotropic medicine from Hippocrates to the age of Prozac, using depression as a paradigm of the ways in which the popularity of such drugs may have been influenced more by pharmaceutical marketing than by medical necessity. -- Catherine Calloway * Journal of American Culture *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Of Illness, Disease, and Remedies The Discovery of Antidepressants Other Things Being Equal The Trials of Therapeutic Empiricism A Pleasing Look of Truth The Luke Effect From Oedipus to Osheroff Postscript Appendix: Current Major Physical Treatments for Depression Notes Index
£29.66
Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies Violent Modernity
Book Synopsis
£16.10
Harvard University, Asia Center Reading North Korea
Book SynopsisSonia Ryang casts new light on the study of North Korean culture and society by reading literary texts as sources of ethnographic data. Ryang focuses critical attention on three central themeslove, war, and selfthat reflect the nearly complete overlap of the personal, social, and political realms in North Korean society.
£30.56
Harvard University Press Common Places Mythologies of Everyday Life in
Book SynopsisBoym provides a view of Russia that is historically informed, replete with unexpected detail, and stamped with authority. Alternating analysis with personal accounts of Russian life, she conveys the foreignness of Russia and examines its peculiar conceptions of private life and common good, of Culture and Trash, of sincerity and banality.Trade ReviewVisitors and outsiders have long lamented that the real lives of Soviet citizens were hidden behind a veil of official rhetoric. The private self was kept separate from the public self as a sort of defensive or coping mechanism. Boym, who was raised in Leningrad but has lived in the West for 13 years, analyzes the dichotomy between the common meeting places of public life and the no-places of private life and discerns a cultural tradition that still persists. Her themes are the communal apartment (which deprived all residents of a private life), graphomania (the compulsion to bad writing), and the spiritual self in Russian philosophy. Examples are drawn from film, literature, painting, and philosophy of the 19th and, primarily, 20th centuries. -- Marcia L. Sprules * Library Journal *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Theoretical Common Places Rubber Plants and the Soviet Order of Things Archeology of the Common Place A Labyrinth without a Monster The Mythologist as Traveler 1. Mythologies of Everyday Life Byt: Daily Grind and Domestic Trash Poshlost': Banality, Obscenity, Bad Taste Meshchanstvo: Middle Class, Middlebrow Private Life and Russian Soul Truth, Sincerity, Affectation Kul'turnost': The Totalitarian Lacquer Box Soviet Songs: From Stalin's Fairy Tale to "Good-bye, Amerika" 2. Living in Common Places: The Communal Apartment Family Romance and Communal Utopia Art and the Housing Crisis: Intellectuals in the Closet Welcome to the Communal Apartment Psychopathology of Soviet Everyday Life Interior Decoration The Ruins of Utopia A Homecoming, 1991 3. Writing Common Places: Graphomania History of the Literary Disease The Forgotten Classics The Genius of the People and the Conceptual Police Glasnost', Graphomania, and Popular Culture A Taxi Ride with a Graphomaniac 4. Postcommunism, Postmodernism The End of the Soviet World: From the Barricades to the Bazaar Glasnost' Streetwalking: Fallen Monuments and Rising Dolls Stalin's Cinematic Charisma, or History as Kitsch Trashy Jewels of Women Artists Merchant Renaissance and Cultural Scandals The Obscure Object of Advertisement Conclusion: Nostalgia for the Common Place Notes Index
£37.36
Harvard University, Asia Center Lost Histories
Book SynopsisIs it possible to write the history of Japan’s colonial subjects? Ziomek contends that it is. By reconstructing individual life histories and following these people as they crossed colonial borders to the metropolis and beyond, Ziomek conveys the dynamic nature of an empire in motion.Trade ReviewLost Histories has several strengths to recommend it and should be required reading for scholars and students in modern Asian history and colonial studies…the method of shifting away from official records (colonial archives) and instead looking to nonofficial records that are textual, oral, visual, and material has opened up new and unfiltered documentation of personal experiences of colonization. -- Alice Y. Tseng * American Historical Review *Ziomek’s remarkable book Lost Histories occupies a unique place within this wave of scholarship [on Japanese imperialism] and represents a valuable contribution to it. What she has done…through her dogged research, is to force us to bring greater precision and empathy to our arguments about ethnicity and agency in colonial rule, in view of the lived experience of colonial subjects. In that sense, the book is truly a gift, one that I hope will feature prominently in future scholarship and teaching on the topic. * H-Diplo Reviews *A meticulously researched, vividly illustrated collection of micro-histories that bring to life the diverse peoples inhabiting the Japanese Empire…Ziomek contests narratives that see Japanese essentialization of ethnic difference as an attempt to strengthen their own position of power. Japan’s fixation on ethnic difference reveals not its success in securing a position of power atop the colonial racial hierarchy but instead the ‘precariousness’ of Japanese rule in the colonies. * Journal of Asian Studies *If, as the Naïve Idealist says, ‘a person’s name has the power to open a connection into their world,’ Kirsten L. Ziomek’s Lost Histories demonstrates that power. Her dogged pursuit of the names and life stories of people who lived within Japan’s formal empire is truly impressive. In several cases Ziomek circumvents the limitations of the ‘colonial archive’ to provide us with portrayals of people whose lives were certainly affected by the ‘oppressive nature of Japan’s colonial policies’ but were nevertheless full and fascinating. * Journal of Japanese Studies *As a work of original research that is both empirically grounded and conceptually bold, Lost Histories is highly recommended to scholars and students of imperial culture, colonial governance, and East Asian history. -- Paul D. Barclay * Journal of World History *Conceptually ambitious and expertly crafted…Lost Histories is especially commendable for its re-creation of the life stories of individual colonial subjects…The quality of scholarship…is superb…Useful to anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of East Asian international relations today. -- Erik Esselstrom * Monumenta Nipponica *Well written and fascinating, the book demonstrates that these lives tell us as much about colonialism as about the impact of colonial subjects on the conduct of Japanese colonial practices. * Choice *
£50.11
Harvard University Press The Gender of Modernity
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£31.46
Harvard University Press A View to a Death in the Morning Hunting and
Book SynopsisA View to a Death in the Morning shows us how hunting has figured in the Western imagination from the myth of Artemis to the tale of Bambi. This book will captivate readers on every side of the dilemma, from the most avid hunters to their most vehement opponents to those who simply wonder about the importance of hunting in human nature.Trade ReviewThere is every reason to believe that animal rights will become increasingly central to our political discourse in the next century. As this issue moves toward center stage, A View to a Death in the Morning will figure prominently...A razor-sharp analysis that succeeds in raising doubts about deeply rooted and widely shared assumptions concerning the position of human beings in nature. -- Robert Rydell * Science *In graceful prose, infused with wit, irony, and asides that lend unexpected and sometimes poignant relevance to his discussion, Cartmill tells an evocative story of human ambivalence about hunting and our relationship to the animals we kill and sometimes eat...This book is a marvelous piece of social history on a topic of wide significance. -- Bruce Winterhalder * American Scientist *[A] splendid book...A View to a Death in the Morning shows both past and present to be a lot more complicated than the slogans of simplistic ideologues. -- Betty Ann Kevles * Los Angeles Times *A stunning survey of society's attitudes toward hunting from classical literature through, inevitably, the greatest anti-hunting event of all time, the release of Walt Disney's Bambi...What [this book] does, with a breadth of literary scholarship and analysis that is most unusual in academic science, is trace society's ambivalence and polarization about hunting from classical Greece...through Rome...and on to the present day...Cartmill's consistent theme--which ties each era, each society, each viewpoint, together in a satisfying text--is his focus on a society's understanding of the relationship between human beings and nature itself. -- M. R. Montgomery * Boston Globe *This book is an elegant, erudite, stimulating essay on the history of Western ideas about humans and nature. -- Adam Kuper * Nature *Table of Contents1. The Killer Ape 2. The Rich Smell of Meat and Wickedness 3. Virgin Hun tresses and Bleeding Feasts 4. The White Stag 5. The Sobbing Deer 6. The Noise of Breaking Machinery 7. The Sorrows of Eohippus 8. The Sick Animal 9. The Bambi Syndrome 10. A Fatal Disease of Nature 11. The Spirit of the Beast 12. A View to a Death in the Morning NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INDEX
£37.36
Princeton University Press The Macedonian Conflict
Book SynopsisExamines the Macedonian conflict in light of theoretical work on the construction of national identities and cultures and the invention of tradition. This book analyzes two issues: the struggle for human rights of the Macedonian minority in northern Greece and the campaign for international recognition of the independent Republic of Macedonia.Trade ReviewHonorable Mention for the 1997 Senior Book Award of the American Ethnological Society One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1996 "Danforth, an anthropologist, takes one through the ferociously juxtaposed claims and counterclaims, and he explains why the issues set people off with such intensity by fitting the case into modern anthropological thought about national identity, ethnic nationalism, and the role of culture...Danforth struggles mightily to maintain his scholarly detachment amid one of the more explosive topics in the universe, and for the most part he succeeds."--Foreign Affairs "A significant contribution both theoretically to the study of ethnic and national identity and specifically to those interested in Balkan politics."--Adamantia Pollis, American Political Science Review "A superb case study both of the conflict between nationalism and ethnic aspirations and of the curious parallelisms in their development... It is a level-headed, humane, and very timely political intervention in a quarrel that continually threatens to become more than a war of words."--Journal of Modern Greek Studies "[An] engaging, original, timely, and conscientiously written study... This is a well-written work and a major contribution to the study of national consciousness and nation-building."--Philip Shashko, American Historical Review "Loring Danforth humanizes the Macedonian conflict, shows us real people as they live this conflict, and makes clear that, despite its unique features, this struggle over ethnic and national identity is shared with other groups throughout the world. A good, rapid read filled with the fruit of first-rate, on-the-scene digging into people's lives."--Lou Panov, The Boston Book ReviewTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsList of MapsPrefaceNote on TransliterationIntroduction3Ch. IEthnic Nationalism: The Construction of National Identities and Cultures11Ch. IIConflicting Claims to Macedonian Identity and History28Ch. IIIThe Construction of a Macedonian National Identity56Ch. IVTransnational National Communities79Ch. VThe Macedonian Human Rights Movement108Ch. VINational Symbols and the International Recognition of the Republic of Macedonia142Ch. VIITed Yannas: A Macedonian in Australia185Ch. VIIIThe Construction of National Identity among Immigrants to Australia from Northern Greece197Bibliography253Index271
£40.50
Princeton University Press Race to the Finish Identity and Governance in an
Book SynopsisArgues that the long abeyance of the Diversity Project points to larger, fundamental questions about how to understand knowledge, democracy, and racism in an age when expert claims about genomes increasingly shape the possibilities for being human.Trade Review"In science and medicine the category of race has not merely survived, it has flourished. In this post-human genome era, it serves as an essential organizing concept for research and presentation of data. How race managed to overcome its past, why it continues to be used, and what the implications are for both science and society, are the subjects of Jenny Reardon's smart, informative, and aptly titled book."--David J. Rothman and Sheila M. Rothman, The New Republic "Reardon has written a valuable book ... Although Reardon does not provide the story of the HGDP, she offers a useful story of the problems that effort faced."--Henry T. Greely, ScienceTable of Contents*FrontMatter, pg. i*Contents, pg. vii*Acknowledgments, pg. ix*Chapter 1. Introduction, pg. 1*Chapter 2. Post-World War II Expert Discourses on Race, pg. 17*Chapter 3. In the Legacy of Darwin, pg. 45*Chapter 4. Diversity Meets Anthropology, pg. 74*Chapter 5. Group Consent and the Informed, Volitional Subject, pg. 98*Chapter 6. Discourses of Participation, pg. 126*Chapter 7. Conclusion, pg. 157*Appendix A. Methodological Appendix, pg. 169*Appendix B. Code for Interviews, pg. 173*Appendix C. Human Genome Diversity Project Time Line, pg. 175*Notes, pg. 179*Bibliography, pg. 211*Index, pg. 229
£33.25
Princeton University Press Mathematics Elsewhere
Book SynopsisPresenting mathematical ideas of people from a variety of small-scale and traditional cultures, this book humanizes our view of mathematics and expands our conception of what is mathematical. It demonstrates that traditional cultures have mathematical ideas that are far more substantial and sophisticated than is generally acknowledged.Trade ReviewHonorable Mention for the 2003 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Mathematics and Statistics, Association of American Publishers "A useful reminder of how universal mathematical and logical structures are in any culture. Mathematicians will enjoy seeing the subject they love cropping up in apparently unexpected contexts. Non-mathematicians should be encouraged to realize that some of the processes that seem to appear naturally in everyday life do in fact have a mathematical content."--John O'Connor, Nature "For a mathematician, Mathematics Elsewhere will expand the universe; for a non-mathematician, the expansion will just take a little more time. The book succeeds well in presenting and explaining very different ways of doing math both within particular cultural contexts and in terms of modern mathematics... The author is clearly an excellent teacher and a wonderful explainer. Every time I felt a bit lost, the next sequence would present the same concept in different words or with another example. She is adept at moving from the general to the specific, from narrative to figurative."--Helaine Selin, Science "This interesting book is a fundamental work in the area of ethnomathematics... [T]he author opens numerous doors and directions in which one finds interesting, nontrivial mathematics. Persons interested in investigating the mathematics of non-Western cultures can use this book as a motivation to look beyond the obvious."--Thomas E. Golsdorf, Mathematical Reviews "Ascher illustrates that non-Western cultures have developed sophisticated mathematical ideas often without having any formal concept of mathematics. This stimulating book deserves a wide audience, especially among those involved in teaching the subject."--Andrew Bowler, New Scientist "In a follow-up to Ascher's highly recommended Ethnomathematics, this scholarly work describes the anthropology of mathematical ideas in traditional societies and shows how the same ideas might be expressed by standard mathematical expressions... It is particularly interesting to see how people with no separate mathematical language made practical use of sophisticated mathematical ideas."--Library Journal "All throughout the book, I was struck by how many uses human cultures have found for modular arithmetic... [I]t appears that mathematics may be an essential survival skill for the human species rather than an extraneous one. The descriptions in this book describe so many different applications, that it becomes hard to deny that something more fundamental is responsible for the many ways we find to person mathematical operations."--Charles Ashbacher, MAA Online "Ascher's spendid book is rich in possibilities for raising readers' horizons: anthropological, educational, mathematical, and philosophical."--Philip J. Davis, SIAM News "Ascher's book is at once a scholarly progress report and an introduction for the curious general reader to a relatively new area of study known as ethnomathematics... Ascher offers a new way of understanding the customs and traditions of non-Western people, adding the lens of mathematics to those of literature, anthropology, and sociology... [She] proves adept at illuminating the connections between local and global mathematics... Part of what makes the volume accessible to the general reader ... is Ascher's evident love for her subject. The mathematics she includes clearly serves a larger purpose: to enhance and illuminate the anecdotes that are the foundation of genuine cultural understanding."--James V. Rauff, Natural HistoryTable of ContentsPreface ix Introduction 1 CHAPTER 1: The Logic of Divination 5 CHAPTER 2: Marking Time 39 CHAPTER 3: Cycles of Time 59 CHAPTER 4: Models and Maps 89 CHAPTER 5: Systems of Relationships 127 CHAPTER 6: Figures on the Threshold 161 CHAPTER 7: Epilogue 191 Index 205
£40.50
Princeton University Press The Nuclear Borderlands The Manhattan Project in
Book SynopsisExplores the socio-cultural fallout of America's technoscientific project - the atomic bomb. This book examines how diverse groups - weapons scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Pueblo Indian Nations and Nuevomexicano communities, and antinuclear activists - have engaged the US nuclear weapons project in the post-Cold War period.Trade ReviewWinner of the 2014 J.I. Staley Prize, School of Advanced Research Winner of the 2008 Rachel Carson Prize, Society for Social Studies of Science Co-Winner of the 2006 Robert K. Merton Prize, Science, Knowledge, and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association Honorable Mention for the 2007 John G. Cawelti Award, American Culture Association "Masco's important and impressive study ably demonstrates that nuclear weapons need not be detonated to have profound effects--effects that extend far beyond the well-studied realms of politics and international relations."--David Kaiser, American Scientist "Masco seems to have taken to heart the tension between anthropology and science studies: on the one hand science studies too often fails in its understanding of what long-term intensive fieldwork can do; on the other anthropology too often fails to get directly into the heart of science and technology the way it always has language, spirituality, and economy. Masco's book is fusion (that impossible goal of our nuclear culture) of the best kind."--Christopher Kelty, Savage MindsTable of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments xi Chapter 1: THE ENLIGHTENED EARTH 1 The Nuclear State of Emergency 5 Radioactive Nation-building 18 The Nuclear Uncanny 27 "A Multidimensional, Nonlinear, Complex System" 35 PART I: EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE PLUTONIUM ECONOMY 41 Chapter 2: NUCLEAR TECHNOAESTHETICS: THE SENSORY POLITICS OF THE BOMB IN LOS ALAMOS 43 The Bomb's Future 46 Above-ground Testing (1945-1962): Tactility and the Nuclear Sublime 55 Underground Testing (1963-1992): Embracing Complexity, Fetishizing Production 68 Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship (1995-2010): Virtual Bombs and Prosthetic Senses 78 Of Bombs and Bodies in the Plutonium Economy 96 Chapter 3: ECONATIONALISMS: FIRST NATIONS IN THE PLUTONIUM ECONOMY 99 Ecologies of Place 101 The New World: 1942/1992 112 Mirrors and Appropriations: The Secret Societies of the Pajarito Plateau 119 Explosive Testing 132 Nuclear Nations: The Sovereignty of Nuclear Waste 144 Econationalisms in the Plutonium Economy 156 Chapter 4: RADIOACTIVE NATION-BUILDING IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO: A NUCLEAR MAQUILADORA? 160 Radioactive Death Trucks 162 On Invasion and Illegitimacy 179 LANL: A Nuclear Maquiladora? 197 Nuevomexicano Futures in the Plutonium Economy 213 Chapter 5: BACKTALKING TO THE NATIONAL FETISH: THE RISE OF ANTINUCLEAR ACTIVISM IN SANTA FE 215 The Post-Cold War Moment 219 The Psychic Toxicity of Plutonium 228 Anti-antinuclear Activists 237 What Is a "New" Nuclear Weapon? 244 Los Alamos: Ground Zero of the Peace Movement 256 PART II: NATIONAL INSECURITIES 261 Chapter 6: LIE DETECTORS: ON SECRECTS AND HYPERSECURITY IN LOS ALAMOS 263 What Is a Nuclear Secret? 265 On Racial Profiling 272 Hypersecurity Measures 278 The "New Normal" 283 Chapter 7: MUTANT ECOLOGIES: RADIOACTIVE LIFE IN POST-COLD WAR NEW MEXICO 289 Of Men and Ants 293 Nuclear Test Subjects 302 The Wildlife/Sacrifice Zone 311 Environmental Sentinels, or the Militarization of the Honey Bee 316 The Social Logics of Mutation 324 Chapter 8: EPILOGUE: THE NUCLEAR BORDERLANDS 328 Notes 339 References 375 Index 413
£37.80
Princeton University Press The Corporeal Image
Book SynopsisBuilding upon the ideas from his "Transcultural Cinema", the author argues for a different conception of how visual images create human knowledge in a world in which the value of seeing has often been eclipsed by words. In ten chapters, he explores the relations between photographic images and the human body.Trade ReviewWinner of the 2007 Dorothy Lee Award, Media Ecology Association One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2006 "The prose is jargon-free, lucid, and, at its best, poignant, especially when the author writes about the now-grown child subjects of his treasured postcard collection... [MacDougall] urges scholars to see the visual as a complement rather than as a substitute for the verbal, as a language with its own vocabulary and potential. Given the author's obvious accomplishments in both forms, his long and successful career stands as the best evidence for the validity of his argument."--Richard John Ascarate, MEDIENTable of ContentsIllustrations ix Acknowledgments xiii INTRODUCTION: Meaning and Being 1 PART I: MATTER AND IMAGE 11 CHAPTER 1: The Body in Cinema 13 CHAPTER 2: Voice and Vision 32 PART II:IMAGES OF CHILDHOOD 65 CHAPTER 3: Films of Childhood 67 CHAPTER 4: Social Aesthetics and the Doon School 94 CHAPTER 5: Doon School Reconsidered 120 PART III:THE PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGINATION 145 CHAPTER 6: Photo Hierarchicus: Signs and Mirrors in Indian Photography 147 CHAPTER 7: Staging the Body: The Photography of Jean Audema 176 PART IV:THE ETHNOGRAPHIC IMAGINATION 211 CHAPTER 8: The Visual in Anthropology 213 CHAPTER 9: Anthropology 's Lost Vision 227 CHAPTER 10: New Principles of Visual Anthropology 264 Filmography 275 Bibliography 283 Index 299
£33.25
Princeton University Press The War of the Sexes
Book SynopsisMen and women became experts at influencing one another to achieve their cooperative ends, but also became trapped in strategies of manipulation and deception in pursuit of sex and partnership. Drawing on biology, sociology, anthropology, and economics, this book shows that conflict between the sexes is, paradoxically, the product of cooperation.Trade ReviewOne of Financial Times (FT.com) Best Economics Books of 2013 "[A] witty, informative and cogent new book."--Jonathan Ree, Guardian "Seabright zooms out and across history in an accessible mix of scholarly prose and chatty anecdote to explain why inequalities and disagreements persist beyond potty-training... Turning to today, Seabright investigates everything from the effects of technology on gender-bias, to the various benefits of tallness, talent, and charm in the workplace."--PublishersWeekly.com "Throughout the book, Seabright is terrific company--entertaining and convincing."--John Whitfield, Nature "Right off the bat, I can say that this book should not be collecting dust on your shelf... [I]s War of the Sexes a challenging and interesting read? Undoubtedly so."--Sander Van Der Linden, LSE Politics and Policy blog "The War of the Sexes is a fascinating read. I love its interdisciplinarity."--Diane Coyle, The Enlightened Economist "Seabright, an economist familiar with evolutionary modelling, synthesises several disciplines in asking what our evolutionary heritage teaches us about men's and women's rights and roles in the modern labour market. Judicious in bringing Darwinism to bear on contemporary mores, he avoids the vulgar reductionism that often plagues this kind of popular science."--Camilla Power, Times Higher Education "Seabright is unusual among economists in being a thoroughgoing Darwinian, and in this fascinating book he takes an evolutionary perspective to explore why there are still inequalities in economic power between men and women."--Jon Wainwright, SkepticTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Part One Prehistory Chapter 1: Introduction 3 Chapter 2: Sex and Salesmanship 27 Chapter 3: Seduction and the Emotions 40 Chapter 4: Social Primates 60 Part Two Today Chapter 5: Testing for Talent 93 Chapter 6: What Do Women Want? 111 Chapter 7: Coalitions of the Willing 126 Chapter 8: The Scarcity of Charm 141 Chapter 9: The Tender War 157 Notes 183 References 211 Index 233
£18.00
Princeton University Press How Ancient Europeans Saw the World Vision
Book SynopsisThe people who inhabited Europe during the two millennia before the Roman conquests had established urban centers, large-scale production of goods such as pottery and iron tools, a money economy, and more. This title argues the visual world of these late prehistoric communities was different from those of ancient Rome's literate civilization.Trade ReviewHonorable Mention for the 2012 PROSE Award in Archeology & Anthropology, Association of American Publishers "[B]eautifully crisp and elegant... [Wells's] book deserves to be widely read and admired."--Peter Thonemann, Times Literary Supplement "With painstaking detail, Wells documents how objects tell the early European story, making a compelling case that historians ought to rethink the standard views."--Tom Siegfried, Science News "Archaeologist Wells takes a novel approach to exploring the way Bronze and Iron Age societies in Europe (2000BCE to 1CE) viewed themselves. Through analysing their artifacts, pottery, fibulae, swords and scabbards, and coins, as well as the arrangements of their graves and their public places, the author plausibly suggests that their views changed through time."--Choice "It is evident that Wells is constantly conscious of the fact that he is writing for a modem 'literate' person to who words are more important than visuals. He has explained every single object, without going on jargons. An interesting history of Europe."--R. Balashankar, Organiser "How Ancient Europeans Saw the World offers a completely new approach to the study of Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, and represents a major challenge to existing views about prehistoric cultures."--World Book Industry "Wells presents thought-provoking ideas about Bronze Age and Iron Age Europeans. This book will stimulate further research on a very challenging topic, that is, the mindset of past populations. The extensive bibliography is very useful for archaeologists interested in this type of research."--Sarunas Milisauskas, Historian "This book is thought-provoking; its broad geographical scope is particularly relevant in this post-credit-crunch world where European integration is once more on the agenda."--Laura Slack, Time & MindTable of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Preface xi Acknowledgments xvii Part I: Theory and Method Chapter 1: Of Monsters and Flowers 1 Chapter 2: Seeing and Shaping Objects 18 Chapter 3: The Visual Worlds of Early Europe 34 Chapter 4: Frame, Focus, Visualization 52 Part II: Material: Objects and Arrangements Chapter 5: Pottery: The Visual Ecology of the Everyday 72 Chapter 6: Attraction and Enchantment: Fibulae 99 Chapter 7: Status and Violence: Swords and Scabbards 112 Chapter 8: Arranging Spaces: Objects in Graves 131 Chapter 9: Performances: Objects and Bodies in Motion 155 Chapter 10: New Media in the Late Iron Age: Coins and Writing 176 Part III: Interpreting the Patterns Chapter 11: Changing Patterns in Objects and in Perception 188 Chapter 12: Contacts, Commerce, and the Dynamics of New Visual Patterns 200 Conclusion Chapter 13: The Visuality of Objects, Past and Present 222 Bibliographic Essay 231 References Cited 249 Index 281
£37.80
Princeton University Press The Minds Provisions A Critique of Cognitivism
Book SynopsisPresents a critique of contemporary cognitivism and develops a philosophy of the mind. Examining American cognitivism and French structuralism, this title offers a general critique of the philosophies that view the mind in strictly causal terms and suppose that the brain - and not the person - thinks.Trade Review"The real strength and the delight of Descombes' (and Schwartz's) book--once one struggles through the more difficult passages--is the treatment he offers to some of the most influential ideas (Jerry Fodor's language of thought) and thought experiments (Putnam's twin Earth, Alan Turing's imitation game, John Searle's Chinese room) in the recent history of philosophy of mind."--Joel Parthemore, Metapsychology Online ReviewsTable of ContentsTranslator's Introduction: The Complete Holist xi CHAPTER 1. The Phenomena of Mind 1 1.1. What is the place of the mental in the world? Common sense cannot decide: in ordinary usage, the adjective "mental" does not apply only to the subject's immanent activities, but may also be used to qualify anything dependent on intellectual competence--a book, for example, which is a mental commodity. 2 1.2. Philosophy of mind becomes a mental philosophy when the mind is defined as a sphere detached from the external world, a sphere for which a place must be found in the order of things. 9 1.3. Classification of the phenomenologies of mind: mental phenomena can be conceived as given to everyone (exteriority) or only to the subject (interiority); they can be conceived as indirect manifestations of mind (symptoms) or as direct manifestations (criteria, expressions). 11 1.4. The philosophy of consciousness detaches mind from the world by contrasting our indirect knowledge of events in the world with our infallible direct knowledge of mental events. 14 1.5. Theories of the unconscious contest the identification of the mental and the conscious, but maintain the dissociation between the representational mind and the world. Theories of mental causes extend the philosophy of representational mind into a third-person psychology. 17 1.6. The philosophy of intention does not define intentionality as a special relation between subject and object, but as an order of meaning imposed on a material. 19 CHAPTER 2. Two Sciences? 30 2.1. In the nineteenth century, the project for the scientific study of the human mind led to a debate regarding the unity of method in the sciences. 30 2.2. The hermeneutic dualism of explanation through laws, on the one hand, and the understanding of meaning, on the other, today takes the form of a conflict between two philosophies of action: the causal theory of action and the intentionalist conception. 32 2.3. The traditional opposition between explanation and understanding rests on a positivist philosophy of naturalistic explanation, one conceived as an explanation by means of laws, i.e., observed regularities. 35 2.4. Laws conceived as general propositions have no explicative power. In order for explanation to take place, the regularly observed link between two kinds of phenomena must correspond to a real connection. 39 2.5. Not every teleological explanation is an intentional explanation: thus, the functional explanation of a natural system makes no reference to intention. 42 CHAPTER 3. The Anthropological Investigation of the Mind 47 3.1. Structural anthropology is the project of explaining (the variety of) human institutions by (common) intellectual structures. 47 3.2. Levi-Strauss sees structural explanation as a way of overcoming the opposition between explanation of social phenomena by means of consciousness, on the one hand, and explanation by historical circumstances, on the other. The social totality has a rational meaning because it can be given (in the mind) before its parts. 51 3.3. According to Levi-Strauss, the holism of the social should be based on a theory of the structural unconscious. However, a naturalistic psychology cannot account for symbolic systems. 54 3.4. According to another brand of structural explanation (that of Louis Dumont), the opposition between voluntarist and historical explanation can be overcome by an understanding based in the radical comparison between our culture and other cultures. 58 CHAPTER 4. The New Mental Philosophy 66 4.1. According to cognitivism, the model provided by the computer makes it possible for a naturalistic psychology to study intellectual activities. 66 4.2. The materialism of contemporary mental philosophy is in fact a dualism for which the subject of mental operations is the brain. 69 4.3. The new mental philosophy advances three theses: (1) that mental life consists of a sequence of mental states; (2) that these mental states can be redescribed as brain states; and, (3) that the behavior of a subject is the effect of an interaction among internal mental causes. 73 Note on the Concept of Metaphysics 78 CHAPTER 5. The Doctrines of Psychical Materialism 84 5.1. Ordinary psychological explanations apply no theory to events. 84 5.2. The notion of a "folk psychological theory" is confused. 87 5.3. There is a real theory of the art of influencing people's behavior by giving them good reasons to act: rhetoric. 90 5.4. Explanation by means of psychical causes seems magical: representations are held effectively to act. According to some causalist theorists, the action of representations would be conceivable if representations were material. In order to establish a scientific psychology, "psychical matter" (Lacan) would have to be identified. 93 5.5. However, when material signs act, they do so in virtue of their physical properties rather than in virtue of their meaning. 97 5.6. The hypothesis of a symbolic effectiveness of myths (Levi-Strauss) prefigures the cognitivist conception, by postulating an intermediary level of material mind, between the intentional and the organic; at this level, symbols are held to act like physical forms. 102 CHAPTER 6. The Psychology of Computers 108 6.1. The Turing test, which is meant to establish the intellectual capacities of machines, proves nothing unless one posits that, in principle, agents exhibiting the same abilities really belong to the same class of equivalents, after we have abstracted from their origins and material makeup. 110 6.2. The comparison between human and artificial intelligence requires a human operator who follows explicit rules. 115 6.3. A subject cannot be given rules to follow unless he has certain primitive practical skills: explanation stops where action must begin (Wittgenstein); the end point of practical reasoning is the starting point for action (Aristotle). 121 6.4. Certain objections raised about the functional classification of intelligent agents are grounded in a deficient conception of the nature of systems. A simple assemblage devoid of organization, like Searle's "Chinese Room," has no behavior of its own, so that the question of its intelligence does not arise. 127 CHAPTER 7. The Inside and the Outside 135 7.1. In psychology, functional explanation accounts for the structure of an animate system's behavior in a complex environment. The psychological theory called "causal functionalism" has nothing to do with structural analysis and therefore puts forwar no real functional explanations. 135 7.2. The "sciences of the artificial" (Herbert Simon) are in fact the sciences of (natural or manufactured) systems considered from the perspective of their adaptive abilities. 141 7.3. Functional explanation is holistic: when it studies the functions of the parts of a whole from the perspective of the rational conduct of this whole in its outer environment, it abstracts from the internal structure of those parts. 148 7.4. Psychology is a science of the artificial because its object--the behavior of animate systems--is not studied as an effect of the structures of its inner environment, but as a response of the behaving systems to the complexity of their outer environments. 152 The condition of mind is neither interiority, nor subjectivity, nor calculating power, but rather, autonomy in determining the goals it undertakes. 158 CHAPTER 8. Mechanical Mind 164 8.1. The analogy with the computer is meant to mediate between physical processes (whose explanation is causal) and mental processes (whose explanation is intentional). This mediation is to be found in the idea that the computer carries out a calculation, in the sense of a rational transformation of physical formulas. 165 8.2. The idea of a calculation is held to resolve the two major difficulties for any mechanical theory of mind: what might be called the "Brentano problem" (how can physical events be explained by their intentional content?) and the "Sherlock Holmes problem" (how can a mechanical sequence of mental states also be a chain of reasoning?). 167 8.3. Every mechanical theory of internal mental representations must demonstrate that it does not require an intelligent mechanism (a homunculus) to manipulate those representations according to their representational content. 171 8.4. First defense of mechanical psychology: through the breakdown of intellectual work into ever more simple operations. Yet, the need for a homunculus was the result not of the difficulty of cognitive operations but of their intentionality. 174 8.5. Second defense: through the redescription of intellectual work as mechanical calculation, thus as physical work. But the physical work described is brain work, so that the brain then becomes the subject of mental operations (dualism of the brain and the body). 178 8.6. A person's activities cannot be described outside of a narrative context. This principle of intelligibility, which is found in Wittgenstein's work, was recognized by the Aristotelian tradition ("actions are attributed to concrete subjects"). This is the principle that allows us to understand why dualisms of the soul (whether spiritual or material) and the body are doomed to incoherence. 182 CHAPTER 9. Cerebroscopic Exercises 189 If beliefs and desires were states of a person's brain, we would in principle have to be able to determine what someone believes or desires by examining the state of his brain. This proposition appears to be incoherent. CHAPTER 10. The Metaphysics of Mental States 200 Mental philosophy borrows its concept of a state from the metaphysics of the natural sciences. A state is an internal condition of something at a given time. This condition is independent of both the state of the world outside the thing and the thing's past. In order to conform to this metaphy. CHAPTER 11. The Detachment of the Mind 212 According to its defenders, mentalist psychology is legitimately solipsistic. For them, psychological explanation must detach mind from the world, for what matters is the content of the subject's mind, not the real state of the world. This is what the psychology of the computer-mind does: it detaches thought by defining it as formal calculation. This defense of methodological solipsism fails to account for the moment of appearances: the Cartesian subject who has suspended judgment continues to encounter appearances. CHAPTER 12. The Historical Conditions of Meaning 224 12.1. The notion of a mental state detached from every context is incomprehensible. Thoughts have their content in the context of a historical tradition of institutions and customs. 224 12.2. Anthropological holism of the mental does not contradict the "principle of supervenience" according to which there can be no mental difference without a physical difference. Indeed, the very notion of supervenience implies a recognition of a difference in order between the states posited by a physical description, and the meaning provided by an intentional description. 229 12.3. In what case are two people thinking the same thing and in what case are they thinking something different? Mental atomism proposes to identify thoughts through individuation: it assumes that thoughts can be counted one-by-one, as physical images might be counted. For its part, mental holism will have to explain how it plans to identify thoughts without individuating them: it will have to provide an identity criterion for thoughts. 236 Notes 249 Works Cited 273 Index 279
£33.25
Princeton University Press Meeting at Grand Central
Book SynopsisBegins with a look at the ideas of Mancur Olson and George Williams, who shifted the question of why cooperation happens from an emphasis on group benefits to individual costs. This book then explores how these ideas have influenced our thinking about cooperation, coordination, and collective action.Trade Review"The study of cooperation is a multifield behemoth, and Meeting at Grand Central admirably covers considerable ground. Importantly, it does this in an accessible way, by describing select theories and concepts with clear and vivid examples. Seeing the current fragmented state of scholarship on cooperation as a coordination problem, and thus a problem of common knowledge, the authors also devote considerable time to developing a common set of definitions and concepts."--Daniel J. Hruschka, Current Anthropology "Better understanding how cooperation emerges from the behavior of interacting individuals represents a crucial endeavor that can only benefit from a multifaceted approach... I am hence confident that ... readers, independent of their disciplinary background, will not only enjoy the reading, but also find it useful for their work and research."--Giangiacomo Bravo, International Journal of the Commons "[T]he major strength of the book clearly lies in its ability to stimulate curiosity for further research... [R]eaders who like to read scientific content in an easily accessible way and become inspired to read more will not be disappointed."--Julia Schindler, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation "Cronk and Leech have provided a solid platform for taking the analysis of social cooperation and coordination in a variety of directions."--Richard E. Wagner, Review of Austrian Economics "The sheer breadth of cases addressed in this book makes it an exhilarating read... Cronk and Leech provide a wonderfully comprehensive reference for those interested in co-operation, accessible and engaging enough for an upper-level undergraduate course on the subject. It sets the groundwork to think carefully about how we should model the world, opening the door for future research to develop prescriptive as well as descriptive models, allowing social scientists the ability to rigorously confront this diverse space of problems."--William J. Berger, Journal of Politics "Meeting at Grand Central would make a great text for an advanced undergraduate or graduate course on cooperation in anthropology, economics, sociology, or political science. There is something for everybody in this challenging and enlightening read."--James L. Boone, Journal of Anthropological ResearchTable of ContentsPreface ix Chapter 1 Cooperation, Coordination, and Collective Action 1 * Box 1.1 Experimental Economic Games 15 Chapter 2 Adaptation: A Special and Onerous Concept 18 Chapter 3 The Logic of Logic, and Beyond 47 * Box 3.1 * Types of Groups 49 * Box 3.2 * Types of Goods 53 Chapter 4 Cooperation and the Individual 72 * Box 4.1 * The Reciprocity Bandwagon 75 * Box 4.2 * The Prisoner's Dilemma Game 79 Chapter 5 Cooperation and Organizations 101 Chapter 6 Meeting at Penn Station: Coordination Problems and Cooperation 124 * Box 6.1 * Coordination Games 150 Chapter 7 Cooperation Emergent 151 Chapter 8 Meeting at Grand Central 169 Notes 189 References 207 Index 23
£33.25
Princeton University Press The War of the Sexes
Book SynopsisAs countless love songs, movies, and self-help books attest, men and women have long sought different things. The result? Seemingly inevitable conflict. Drawing on biology, sociology, anthropology, and economics, this title shows that conflict between the sexes is, paradoxically, the product of cooperation.Trade ReviewOne of Financial Times (FT.com) Best Economics Books of 2013 "[A] witty, informative and cogent new book."--Jonathan Ree, Guardian "Seabright zooms out and across history in an accessible mix of scholarly prose and chatty anecdote to explain why inequalities and disagreements persist beyond potty-training... Turning to today, Seabright investigates everything from the effects of technology on gender-bias, to the various benefits of tallness, talent, and charm in the workplace."--PublishersWeekly.com "Throughout the book, Seabright is terrific company--entertaining and convincing."--John Whitfield, Nature "Right off the bat, I can say that this book should not be collecting dust on your shelf... [I]s War of the Sexes a challenging and interesting read? Undoubtedly so."--Sander Van Der Linden, LSE Politics and Policy blog "The War of the Sexes is a fascinating read. I love its interdisciplinarity."--Diane Coyle, The Enlightened Economist "Seabright, an economist familiar with evolutionary modelling, synthesises several disciplines in asking what our evolutionary heritage teaches us about men's and women's rights and roles in the modern labour market. Judicious in bringing Darwinism to bear on contemporary mores, he avoids the vulgar reductionism that often plagues this kind of popular science."--Camilla Power, Times Higher Education "Seabright is unusual among economists in being a thoroughgoing Darwinian, and in this fascinating book he takes an evolutionary perspective to explore why there are still inequalities in economic power between men and women."--Jon Wainwright, SkepticTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Part One Prehistory Chapter 1: Introduction 3 Chapter 2: Sex and Salesmanship 27 Chapter 3: Seduction and the Emotions 40 Chapter 4: Social Primates 60 Part Two Today Chapter 5: Testing for Talent 93 Chapter 6: What Do Women Want? 111 Chapter 7: Coalitions of the Willing 126 Chapter 8: The Scarcity of Charm 141 Chapter 9: The Tender War 157 Notes 183 References 211 Index 233
£19.00
Princeton University Press The Political Machine
Book SynopsisThe Political Machine investigates the essential role that material culture plays in the practices and maintenance of political sovereignty. Through an archaeological exploration of the Bronze Age Caucasus, Adam Smith demonstrates that beyond assemblies of people, polities are just as importantly assemblages of things--from ballots and bullets to cTrade Review"The coherence and brevity of the book reflects its development from the 2013 Rostovtzeff Lecture Series at New York University. The book can be read quickly, and its significance for evolutionary studies can be assimilated thoughtfully. It deserves to be read broadly by academics, graduate students and an interested public."--Timothy Earle, Antiquity "I most strongly recommend this as a book with which to argue, for all interested in the newest forms of theory concerning politics and objects, as well as anyone examining ancient Eurasian cultural forms and connections."--Chris Gosden, American Anthropologist "The Political Machine surely succeeds in bringing the political back into the mainstream of archaeological theory. Smith's provocative work will be studied by all interested in ontology and the epistemology of things, and by archaeological theorists."--Geoffrey D. Summers, Bryn Mawr Classical ReviewTable of ContentsPreface ix Introduction: Reverse Engineering the Polity 1 The Conditions of Sovereignty 4 Machine Politics 7 Bodies and Things 11 Into the Caucasus 16 Schematic 20 Part I: The Machinery of Sovereignty Chapter 1. On Assemblages and Machines 27 Things and Objects 29 The Exile of Things 33 Nature Morte 40 The Assemblage Assembled 43 The Efficacy of Machines 48 Sense, Sensibility, and Sentiment 54 Chapter 2. On The Matter of Sovereignty 59 Sovereignty Disassembled 61 Prehistory and the Political 64 Archaeologies of Sovereignty 67 Assembly and Assemblage 72 Origin Myths 73 Wayward Things and the Dual Sovereign 78 Exit Objects 1: Liberal Theory and Things 81 Exit Objects 2: Marx and Matter 83 Sovereign Matter, Governmental Machines 86 The Sovereign Conditions 91 Part II: Assembling Sovereignty Chapter 3. The Civilization Machine in the Early Bronze Age 97 The Kura-Araxes 102 Sensibility 105 Sense 110 Sentiment 122 An Early Bronze Age Public 125 Chapter 4. The War Machine in the Middle Bronze Age 127 The Caucasus in Transition 130 Sensibility 138 Sense 144 Sentiment 148 Territorialization and Contradiction 151 Chapter 5. The Political Machine in the Late Bronze Age 154 The Caucasus at the Beginning of the Late Bronze Age 157 Sensibility 165 Sense 171 Sentiment 178 The Enduring Political Machine 183 Conclusion 186 Erebuni-Yerevan 188 Brother Axe 194 References Cited 197 Index 233
£37.80
Princeton University Press Disruptive Fixation
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the 2018 CITAMS Book Award, Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association""Anyone holding Sims’s book will have at hand— literally—a reminder of how reformers’ dreams of using technology’s magical power to shape a perfect future tend to persist, even in the face of real-world constraints and ethical concerns."---Amy Sue Bix, Technology and CultureTable of ContentsAcknowledgments xi Preface xiii 1 Introduction 1 2 Cycles of Disruptive Fixation 24 3 Spatial Fixations 56 4 Pedagogic Fixations 87 5 Amenable and Fixable Subjects 111 6 Community Fixations 139 7 Conclusion: The Resilience of Techno-Idealism 163 Appendix Ethnographic Fixations 179 Notes 185 References 195 Index 207
£70.20
Princeton University Press Creativity Class Art School and Culture Work in
Book SynopsisThe last three decades have seen a massive expansion of China's visual culture industries, from architecture and graphic design to fine art and fashion. New ideologies of creativity and creative practices have reshaped the training of a new generation of art school graduates. Creativity Class is the first book to explore how Chinese art students deTrade Review"A fascinating study."--ChoiceTable of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Preface ix 1 Creative Human Capital 1 2 Thirty Years of Reform 21 3 Art Test Fever 60 4 New Socialist Realisms 93 5 Self-Styling 122 6 Aesthetic Community 158 Conclusion Masters of Culture? 188 Acknowledgments 201 Notes 203 References 225 Index 239
£31.50
Princeton University Press How Ancient Europeans Saw the World
Book SynopsisThe peoples who inhabited Europe during the two millennia before the Roman conquests had established urban centers, large-scale production of goods such as pottery and iron tools, a money economy, and elaborate rituals and ceremonies. Yet as Peter Wells argues here, the visual world of these late prehistoric communities was profoundly different froTrade ReviewHonorable Mention for the 2012 PROSE Award in Archeology & Anthropology, Association of American Publishers "[B]eautifully crisp and elegant... [Wells's] book deserves to be widely read and admired."--Peter Thonemann, Times Literary Supplement "With painstaking detail, Wells documents how objects tell the early European story, making a compelling case that historians ought to rethink the standard views."--Tom Siegfried, Science News "Archaeologist Wells takes a novel approach to exploring the way Bronze and Iron Age societies in Europe (2000BCE to 1CE) viewed themselves. Through analysing their artifacts, pottery, fibulae, swords and scabbards, and coins, as well as the arrangements of their graves and their public places, the author plausibly suggests that their views changed through time."--Choice "It is evident that Wells is constantly conscious of the fact that he is writing for a modem 'literate' person to who words are more important than visuals. He has explained every single object, without going on jargons. An interesting history of Europe."--R. Balashankar, Organiser "How Ancient Europeans Saw the World offers a completely new approach to the study of Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, and represents a major challenge to existing views about prehistoric cultures."--World Book Industry "Wells presents thought-provoking ideas about Bronze Age and Iron Age Europeans. This book will stimulate further research on a very challenging topic, that is, the mindset of past populations. The extensive bibliography is very useful for archaeologists interested in this type of research."--Sarunas Milisauskas, Historian "This book is thought-provoking; its broad geographical scope is particularly relevant in this post-credit-crunch world where European integration is once more on the agenda."--Laura Slack, Time & MindTable of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Preface xi Acknowledgments xvii Part I: Theory and Method Chapter 1: Of Monsters and Flowers 1 Chapter 2: Seeing and Shaping Objects 18 Chapter 3: The Visual Worlds of Early Europe 34 Chapter 4: Frame, Focus, Visualization 52 Part II: Material: Objects and Arrangements Chapter 5: Pottery: The Visual Ecology of the Everyday 72 Chapter 6: Attraction and Enchantment: Fibulae 99 Chapter 7: Status and Violence: Swords and Scabbards 112 Chapter 8: Arranging Spaces: Objects in Graves 131 Chapter 9: Performances: Objects and Bodies in Motion 155 Chapter 10: New Media in the Late Iron Age: Coins and Writing 176 Part III: Interpreting the Patterns Chapter 11: Changing Patterns in Objects and in Perception 188 Chapter 12: Contacts, Commerce, and the Dynamics of New Visual Patterns 200 Conclusion Chapter 13: The Visuality of Objects, Past and Present 222 Bibliographic Essay 231 References Cited 249 Index 281
£20.90
Princeton University Press Digital Keywords
Book SynopsisTrade Review"[A] new and revolutionary publication... Digital Keywords serves as an in-depth interrogation of the meaning and development of digitised language... Those wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the modern, digital world we all inhabit would be well advised to begin by taking a look at this book. Just as Keywords made its way firmly onto reference shelves in the 1970s, so too will Digital Keywords today."--Jade Fell, Engineering and Technology "This a good springboard to spark a discussion about the cultural and social significance of a select set of words in the context of a computer-mediated society and culture."--ChoiceTable of ContentsAcknowledgments xi Introduction, Benjamin Peters xiii 1 Activism, Guobin Yang 1 2 Algorithm, Tarleton Gillespie 18 3 Analog, Jonathan Sterne 31 4 Archive, Katherine D. Harris 45 5 Cloud, John Durham Peters 54 6 Community, Rosemary Avance 63 7 Culture, Ted Striphas 70 8 Democracy, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen 81 9 Digital, Benjamin Peters 93 10 Event, Julia Sonnevend 109 11 Flow, Sandra Braman 118 12 Forum, Hope Forsyth 132 13 Gaming, Saugata Bhaduri 140 14 Geek, Christina Dunbar-Hesterv 149 15 Hacker, Gabriella Coleman 158 16 Information, Bernard Geoghegan 173 17 Internet, Thomas Streeter 184 18 Meme, Limor Shifman 197 19 Memory, Steven Schrag 206 20 Mirror, Adam Fish 217 21 Participation, Christopher Kelty 227 22 Personalization, Stephanie Ricker Schulte 242 23 Prototype, Fred Turner 256 24 Sharing, Nicholas A. John 269 25 Surrogate, Jeffrey Drouin 278 Appendix: Over Two Hundred Digital Keywords 287 About the Contributors 291 Index 297
£20.90
Princeton University Press The Nuclear Borderlands The Manhattan Project in
Book Synopsis
£27.00
Princeton University Press Creativity Class
Book SynopsisTrade Review"A fascinating study." * Choice *"Creativity Class: Art School and Culture Work in Postsocialist China places a valuable and hitherto largely absent focus on art education as a vector of cultural creativity in contemporary China. . . . Convincing and well supported by primary research."---Paul Gladston, China Review International"Chumley’s careful observation and analyses of art test fever reveal the contradiction between the values reproduced through the exam system and the values emphasized by the Chinese educational and economic reforms."---Cong Zhang, Vanessa L. Fong, Political and Legal Anthropology Review
£25.20
Princeton University Press Horizon Work
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the Diana Forsythe Prize, American Anthropological Association""Shortlisted for the Project Syndicate Sustainability Book Award""Winner of the Robert B. Textor and Family Prize, American Anthropological Association"
£27.00
Princeton University Press The Process of Animal Domestication
Book SynopsisTrade Review"The Process of Animal Domestication is a fascinating book that comes highly recommended. Its synthesis of a large body of research makes it incredibly valuable to evolutionary and developmental biologists, geneticists, anthropologists, and (zoo)archaeologists. However, the writing is accessible enough that (under)graduate students wanting to read up on animal domestication can safely turn to this book as well."---Leon Vlieger, Inquisitive Biologist"This well-referenced, scholarly publication will be valuable primarily for those geneticists, embryologists, comparative anatomists, and evolutionary biologists chiefly interested in the multifaceted issues and history associated with animal domestication."---D.A. Brass, CHOICE
£36.00
Princeton University Press The Economics of Population Growth
Book Synopsis
£80.75
Princeton University Press Gender and Power in Rural Greece
Book Synopsis
£40.50
MP-KAN Uni Press of Kansas Seeking Identity Individualism Versus Community
Book SynopsisThis text combines ethical theory and personal experience to explore family and community influences on individual behaviour within an ethnic setting. Concentrating on Italian-Americans, the author assesses the links with often conflicting groups such as family, friends, neighbourhood and country.
£22.91
MP-KAN Uni Press of Kansas Kansas Archaeology
Book SynopsisFrom Kanorado to Pawnee villages, Kansas is a land rich in archaeological sites - nearly 12,000 known - that testify to its prehistoric heritage. This volume presents the first comprehensive overview of Kansas archaeology in nearly fifty years, containing the most current descriptions and interpretations of the state's archaeological record.
£28.86
Classical Press of Wales Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity
Book SynopsisThe period 300-600 AD saw huge changes in the Roman Empire. Here, 20 papers by international scholars explore how group identities were established against this shifting background. Themes include religious conversion, Roman law, problems of Jewish identity and what it meant to be Roman.
£55.80
LUP - Voltaire Foundation LHomme Dissonant au XVIII Si232cle
Book SynopsisComment s’élabore une poétique et une pensée de la différence au dix-huitième siècle, ou l’on situe généralement l’émergence de l’individu moderne, tel est l’enjeu de l’itinéraire de L’Homme dissonant à travers romans, essais philosophiques, récits de voyages, articles encyclopédiques.Table of ContentsRemerciementsIntroductionPremière partie – Concordia discorsI Les idiotismes: principes d’individuationII La dissonance: problèmes esthétiques et politiquesIII Paria: exclusion/ électionSeconde partie – Discordia concorsIV La nature dans sa criseV Rites de passage VI La différence travestieConclusionListe des ouvrages citésIndex
£98.30
Pluto Press Cultivating Development
Book SynopsisCritiques the very essence of development policy, especially the complex relationship between policy and practice and role of participation.Trade Review'A superb book, one of those rarities that can change entire ways of thinking' -- Scott Guggenheim, Lead Social Scientist, The World Bank'Strongly argued, vividly illustrated and fluently written. Highly recommended' -- Amita Baviskar, Visiting Professor, Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Stanford University'Any development professional will find scenarios that are recognisable here. As the many entry points slowly build up into a rich and thick description of the project' world, it becomes clear that this candid depiction forces us to engage with candid questions especially about the book's two principal concepts: practice and policy' -- Ingie Hovland, Development Policy Review'A brave and crucial work which dismantles the accepted orthodoxies about the making of development by development agencies. Everyone with an interest in development - whether practitioner or critic - should read this book' -- Dinah Rajak, Development in PracticeTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Glossary and abbreviations 1. Introduction: The Ethnography of Policy and Practice 2. Framing a Participatory Development Project 3. Tribal Livelihoods and the Development Frontier 4. The Goddess and the PRA: Local Knowledge and Planning 5. Implementation: Regime and Relationships 6. Consultant Knowledge 7. The Social Production of Development Success 8. Aid Policy and Project Failure 9. Aspirations for Development 10. Conclusions and Implications Bibliography Index
£25.19
Pluto Press Cultivating Development An Ethnography of Aid
Book SynopsisCritiques the very essence of development policy, especially the complex relationship between policy and practice and role of participation.Trade Review'A superb book, one of those rarities that can change entire ways of thinking' -- Scott Guggenheim, Lead Social Scientist, The World Bank'Strongly argued, vividly illustrated and fluently written. Highly recommended' -- Amita Baviskar, Visiting Professor, Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Stanford University'Any development professional will find scenarios that are recognisable here. As the many entry points slowly build up into a rich and thick description of the project' world, it becomes clear that this candid depiction forces us to engage with candid questions especially about the book's two principal concepts: practice and policy' -- Ingie Hovland, Development Policy Review'A brave and crucial work which dismantles the accepted orthodoxies about the making of development by development agencies. Everyone with an interest in development - whether practitioner or critic - should read this book' -- Dinah Rajak, Development in PracticeTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Glossary and abbreviations 1. Introduction: The Ethnography of Policy and Practice 2. Framing a Participatory Development Project 3. Tribal Livelihoods and the Development Frontier 4. The Goddess and the PRA: Local Knowledge and Planning 5. Implementation: Regime and Relationships 6. Consultant Knowledge 7. The Social Production of Development Success 8. Aid Policy and Project Failure 9. Aspirations for Development 10. Conclusions and Implications Bibliography Index
£72.25
Pluto Press Anthropologys World Life in a TwentyFirstCentury Discipline Anthropology Culture and Society
Book SynopsisMaps the contemporary social world of anthropologists and its relation to the wider world in which they carry out their work.Trade Review'Ulf Hannerz takes readers behind-the-scenes with wit, insight, political acuity, and a good measure of humanity. His observations about the frequent privileging of English in today's 'global discipline' and its consequences are especially sharp' -- Virginia R. Dominguez, President, American Anthropological Association, Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Co-Founder and Consulting Director, International Forum for U.S. Studies'Widely admired as a leading anthropologist of globalisation, Hannerz shows how anthropology came to be a central intellectual discipline, and why it should stay that way in a globalised world where the local refuses to be beaten into submission' -- Thomas Hylland Eriksen is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. He is the author of numerous books, including Ethnicity and Nationalism, A History of Anthropology, Small Places, Large Issues, Tyranny of the Moment and Globalisation, all available from Pluto PressTable of Contents1. Introduction: In the World, and a World in Itself - Chair of the European Association of Social Anthropologists 2. Editing Anthropology: Two Experiences in Space and Time 3. Diversity Is Our Business 4. Field Worries: Studying Down, Up, Sideways, Through, Backward, Forward, Early or Later, Away and at Home 5. Making the World Transparent 6. Flat World and the Tower of Babel: Linguistic Practices in a Global Discipline 7. Before and After: Exploring the Usable Past 8. And Next, Briefly: Toward 2050 Notes References Index
£25.19
Pluto Press Reconstructing Karl Polanyi
Book SynopsisAn unprecedented analysis of the revered political economist Karl Polyani's life and work, drawn from newly discovered primary sources.Trade Review'Indispensable for understanding and applying Polanyian thought. Dale's book is a model of critical scholarship, placing Polanyi in historical context and skillfully tracing thedevelopment of his theory' -- Wolfgang Streeck, Emeritus Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, author of Buying Time and How Will Capitalism End?'A great asset for the left in the critique of capitalist market economy’ -- Tamás Krausz, author of Reconstructing Lenin: An Intellectual Biography (Monthly Review Press, 2015)'A magisterial culmination of the author’s extensive decade-long research' -- LSE Review of Books'Revitalises, brings back, and inverts Polanyi's thought' -- Alicia Girón, Professor and Researcher of the Economic Research Institute (IIEc) at the National University of Mexico'No one digs deeper than Gareth Dale into Polanyi's mindset, into his politics as well as his scholarship' -- Chris Hann, Director, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany'Full of gems and every paragraph reads like a dense fascinating summary of big debates ... there is much of interest here' -- Green Left WeeklyTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1. Reconstructing Sociology 2. The Marxist Orbit: Polanyi’s Double Movement 3. Capital versus the Demos 4. Democratic Tyranny: The Soviet Union 5. Reconstructing The Great Transformation 6. Regionalism and the European Union 7. Intellectuals and the Red Scare 8. Redistribution and Market Exchange in Mesopotamia 9. Markets in Ancient Greece: The Challenge of the New Institutionalism (with Matthijs Krul) Notes Index
£24.29
Pluto Press The Limits to Citizen Power
Book SynopsisA critical engagement with citizen participation, state power and the difficulties of realising the principles of participatory democracyTrade Review'Takes readers deep inside the interworking of the one of world's most well-known participatory experiences. Albert's excellent contribution to the study of citizen participation illuminates the problems of embedding participatory democracy inside existing state structures' -- Dr. Brian Wampler, Professor of Political Science, Boise State University (USA)Table of ContentsList of Figures and Tables List of Abbreviations Series Preface Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Democratisation, Reform and Participation in Brazil 2. Rituals and Ritualisation 3. Participatory Budgeting: Ritualisations of Petitioning and Power 4. Embedded Participatory Institutions: The Urban Development Council and the Housing Council 5. Shared Practices, Contrasting Ideologies 6. Backstage Conclusion: Reimagining Participatory Democracy Notes References Index
£72.25
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Consumer Culture and Modernity by Don Slater
Book Synopsisaeo This is a comprehensive survey of theories of consumer culture, making it an ideal introduction to the field. aeo Slater presents consumer culture as part of a broader debate about the nature and development of modern societies, rather than just a contemporary or postmodern issue.Trade Review"A book of unusual clarity combined with careful and considered assessment of the plethora of arguments that have arisen about the fundamental nature of consumption and modernity from the Enlightenment to the present day. This is the best synthesis of the literature on consumption that has yet been produced and an ideal textbook for anyone wishing to teach or to learn about the spectrum of theoretical approaches that have been developed to account for one of the key issues of our time." Daniel Miller, University College London "An ambitious and interesting review of consumer studies. Slater shows a real talent for exposition across a range of disciplines and approaches. There is much ground to cover and he does it admirably." SociologyTable of ContentsIntroduction. 1. Consumer Culture and Modernity. 2. The Freedoms of the Market. 3. Consumption versus 'Culture'. 4. The Culture of Commodities. 5. The Meanings of Things. 6. The Uses of Things. 7. New Times?. Afterword. Bibliography. Index.
£17.09
John Wiley and Sons Ltd The Subject of Anthropology
Book SynopsisThis new book draws on anthropology, feminism and psychoanalysis to develop an original and provocative theory of gender and of how we become sexed beings. Written not just for professional scholars and for students but for anyone with a serious interest in how gender and sexuality are conceptualised, experienced and imagined.Trade Review"An excellent and compelling book that, among the many aspects worth discussing, invites the forging of new alliances between anthropology and psychoanalysis in their common concerns for culture, representation and the nature of symbols." LSE Review of Books "A very well written book on an important topic by one of the most gifted anthropologists of her generation ... that is bound to become a classic text in the emergent cross-road between psychoanalysis, anthropology and feminist studies." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute "Provides a stimulating challenge to social theorists of subjectivity to apply its arguments to other sets of ethnographic data, and to take up and extend the debate that Moore initiates in this innovative book." British Journal of Sociology "This book is invaluable – there is nothing else like it. Well-organized and beautifully written, it is also clear as a bell, which is no mean feat when dealing with these complex and abstruse issues." Emily Martin, New York University "This is a major intellectual achievement by one of the pioneers of feminist anthropology. Henrietta Moore sets a new agenda for transnational gender and sexuality research while debating some of the cutting-edge theoretical issues in feminist psychoanalysis and post-structuralism. She urges us to acknowledge the complex and dynamic relationship between bodies and the variant cultural meanings attached to femininity and masculinity, but also to consider the enduring hold of the social imaginary upon the constitution of the subject. A major contribution to the political economy of sexuality in the global era." Rosi Braidotti, Utrecht University "Henrietta Moore seeks to build a theory of gendered subjectivity by articulating the insights of psychoanalysis, anthropology and feminism. The extended readings of psychoanalytic theory through anthropological and feminist eyes are clear and illuminating. This is a rich and thought-provoking book." Sherry B. Ortner, University of California-Los AngelesTable of ContentsAcknowledgements viii 1 Body, Mind and World 1 2 A Genealogy of the Anthropological Subject 23 3 Culture, Power and Desire 43 4 Objects and Relations with (M)others 63 5 The Problem of the Phallus 95 6 Being and Having 115 7 Kinship and Sexuality 137 8 Mothers and Men 165 9 Social Transformations 193 Notes 212 References 235 Index 259
£49.50
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Racism Modernity and Identity On the Western
Book Synopsisaeo This is an original and timely book given the current rise in ethnicised politics. aeo The book is theoretically innovative -- bringing together current developments in sociological theory in relation to ethnic and "race" relations. aeo The book is highly comparative, including material from US, Continental Europe and the UK.Trade Review"[The] strength of this collection is that it does not deliver a reassuring unanimity of opinion." Millennium "[This book] bring[s] together some of the most original and influential writers on racism and changing ethnicities in the context of recent transformations in Europe, the US and other parts of the globe." Sociology "This excellent book is a collection of nine uniformly perceptive essays, and deserves a warm welcome." Political Studies "This book has much to offer. In particular, its attention to the centrality of racism in the construction of western identities and the unpacking of the myths that are integral to the formation of the 'western front' provide a refreshing analysis of contemporary racisms." Patterns of PrejudiceTable of ContentsThe Contributors. Modern Racisms, Racialized Identities: Ali Rattansi and Sallie Westwood. Part I: Racism and "Postmodernity". . 1. 'Western' Racisms, Ethnicities and Identitities in a 'Postmodern' Frame: Ali Rattansi. 2. Exploring Other Zones of the Postmodern: Problems of Ethnocentrism and Difference across the North-South Divide: David Slater. Part II: The Western Front. . 3. Unpacking the West: How European is Europe? Jan Nederveen Pieterse. 4. Egypt in America: Black Athena, Racism and Colonial Discourse: Robert Young. Part III: Racisms and Modernity in Europe. . 5. Racism in Europe: Unity and Diversity: Michel Wieviorka. 6. Explaining Racism in Contemporary Europe: Robert Miles. 7. Universalism and Difference: The Crisis of Anti-Racism in the UK and France: Cathie Lloyd. Part IV: Racialised Identities, Local and Global. . 8. Racism, Mental Illness and the Politics of Identity: Sallie Westwood. 9. Racial Formation and Hegemony: Global and Local Developments: Howard Winant. Index.
£18.99
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity
Book SynopsisBoth an examination of Habermas's conception of modernity and his account of the legacy of the Enlightenment, and a systematic assessment of his work, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. The essays are written by philosophers, social theorists, intellectual historians and literary critics.Table of ContentsList of Contributors vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1Maurizio Passerin d'Entreves 1 Modernity: An Unfinished Project 38Jurgen Habermas PART I CRITICAL REJOINDERS 2. The Discourse of Modernity: Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Habermas 59Fred Dallmayr 3 Deconstruction, Postmodernism and Philosophy: Habermas on Derrida 97Christopher Norris 4 Splitting the Difference: Haberma's Critique of Derrida 124David Couzens Hoy 5 Habermas and Foucault 147James Schmidt 6 Intersubjectivity and the Monadic Core of the Psyche: Hebermas and Castoriadis on the Unconscious 172Joel Whitebook PART II THEMATIC REFORMULATIONS 7 Two Versions of the Linguistic Turn: Habermas and Poststructuralism 197James Bohman 8 Habermas and the Question of Alterity 221Diana Coole 9 The Causality of Fate: Modernity and Modernism in Habermas 245Jay M. Bernstein 10 The Subject of Justice in Postmodern Discourse: Aesthetic Judgement and Political Rationality 269David Ingram Index 303
£49.50
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Jesus in Disneyland Religion in Postmodern Times
Book Synopsisaeo An engaging and accessible study of the relation between religion and postmodernity. aeo Examines key issues such as the rise of consumerism and the influence of communication and information technologies as a way of understanding the transformations of religion throughout the worl.Trade Review'This is an excellent book. I can't believe that anyone would want to teach about contemporary religion or about postmodernity without recommending this book and using it as a springboard for their own discussions.' Alan Bryman, Professor of Social Research, Loughborough University 'Readers familiar with David Lyon's previous work will find in Jesus in Disneyland the same combination of theoretical awareness, perceptive comment and accessibility that makes his writing so valuable to all those interested in the nature of religion in the modern world. The book elucidates the subtle shift in the world of religion from obligation to consumption - a state of affairs that we need to know more about.' Grace Davie, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Exeter 'The writing is clear and filled with a number of engaging illustrations ... there is a great deal that I very much enjoyed within this book.' LJK, Regent's Reviews 'This interesting book explores the implications of postmodernity on religion. At the same time it questions the centrality of the secularization thesis in sociology of religion as well as calling for reflexivity as a more central aspect of sociological endeavour.' British Journal of Sociology 'The book is engaging and well-written - that academic rarity, a "good read".' Theology Today 'This is a beautifully written, imaginative and stimulating account of the place of religion in postmodernity ... a work laden with richness, a freshness of insight and a sense of immediacy.' Journal of Contemporary Religion "Jesus in Disneyland:Religion in Postmodern Times is a highly distinctive and fresh commentary on contemporary religion and late modernity by David Lyon, a writer able to embrace the postmodern cultural turn with gusto and panache." European Journal of Social Theory "This work provides the most insightful understanding of the contemporary context for this field of study" Daryl Healea, Religious Studies Review"This book will provide a fruitful way of grasping some of the fortunes of religion in this postmodern era." StimulusTable of ContentsPreface. 1. Meeting Jesus in Disneyland. 2. Faith's Fate. 3. Postmodern Premonitions. 4. Signs of the Times. 5. Shopping for a Self. 6. A Global Spirit. 7. Telescoped Time. 8. Faith's Future. Notes. Bibliography. Index.
£54.00
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Jesus in Disneyland Religion in Postmodern Times
Book Synopsisaeo An engaging and accessible study of the relation between religion and postmodernity. aeo Examines key issues such as the rise of consumerism and the influence of communication and information technologies as a way of understanding the transformations of religion throughout the worl.Trade Review'This is an excellent book. I can't believe that anyone would want to teach about contemporary religion or about postmodernity without recommending this book and using it as a springboard for their own discussions.' Alan Bryman, Professor of Social Research, Loughborough University 'Readers familiar with David Lyon's previous work will find in Jesus in Disneyland the same combination of theoretical awareness, perceptive comment and accessibility that makes his writing so valuable to all those interested in the nature of religion in the modern world. The book elucidates the subtle shift in the world of religion from obligation to consumption - a state of affairs that we need to know more about.' Grace Davie, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Exeter 'The writing is clear and filled with a number of engaging illustrations ... there is a great deal that I very much enjoyed within this book.' LJK, Regent's Reviews 'This interesting book explores the implications of postmodernity on religion. At the same time it questions the centrality of the secularization thesis in sociology of religion as well as calling for reflexivity as a more central aspect of sociological endeavour.' British Journal of Sociology 'The book is engaging and well-written - that academic rarity, a "good read".' Theology Today 'This is a beautifully written, imaginative and stimulating account of the place of religion in postmodernity ... a work laden with richness, a freshness of insight and a sense of immediacy.' Journal of Contemporary Religion "Jesus in Disneyland:Religion in Postmodern Times is a highly distinctive and fresh commentary on contemporary religion and late modernity by David Lyon, a writer able to embrace the postmodern cultural turn with gusto and panache." European Journal of Social Theory "This work provides the most insightful understanding of the contemporary context for this field of study" Daryl Healea, Religious Studies Review"This book will provide a fruitful way of grasping some of the fortunes of religion in this postmodern era." StimulusTable of ContentsPreface. 1. Meeting Jesus in Disneyland. 2. Faith's Fate. 3. Postmodern Premonitions. 4. Signs of the Times. 5. Shopping for a Self. 6. A Global Spirit. 7. Telescoped Time. 8. Faith's Future. Notes. Bibliography. Index.
£999.99
Polity Press Practical Reason
Book SynopsisIn this new volume Pierre Bourdieu - one of the foremost social thinkers of our time - clarifies and elaborates the most fundamental characteristics of his theoretical approach. Bourdieu''s theory is both a relational philosophy of science dedicated to revealing the objective relations which shape and underpin social life, and a philosophy of action which takes account of agents'' dispositions as well as the structured situations in which they act. This philosophy of action is condensed in a small number of key concepts - habitus, field, capital - and it is defined by the two-way relationship between the objective structures of social fields and the incorporated structures of the habitus. The key concepts and assumptions of Bourdieu''s approach are exemplified in this volume through a variety of concrete analyses, from a discussion of the formation of the modern state to an account of the family as a site of social reproduction, from an analysis of the economy Trade Review'This is a powerful and archetypal sociology. No aspect of human action or belief escapes demystification.' BSA Network 'Overall, this is an excellent introduction to Bourdieu's own work and will be useful to undergraduate and postgraduate students in cultural studies.' Cultural Studies: General, The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural TheoryTable of ContentsPreface. 1. Social Space and Symbolic Space. Appendix: The "Soviet" Variant and Political Capital. 2. The New Capital. A. ppendix: Social Space and Field of Power. 3. Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field. Appendix: The Family Spirit. 4. Is a Disinterested Act Possible?. 5. The Economy of Symbolic Goods. Appendix: Remarks on the Economy of the Church. 6. The Scholastic Point of View. A Paradoxical Foundation of Ethics. Index.
£999.99