Social and cultural anthropology Books

Book SynopsisDemonstrates that Jews and Poles use spaces, institutions, interpersonal exchanges, and cultural representations to make sense of their historical inheritancesTrade ReviewIn Jewish Poland Revisited, [Lehrer] excavates forgotten history and discusses surprising recent developments—including the large number of Jewish tourists coming to Poland and the growing interest among non-Jewish Poles in Jews and Judaism. . . She boldly asserts that 'Poland—the epicenter of the destruction of European Jewry—is now a key site for the regeneration, rearticulation, and redefinition not only of a local Jewish community, but of inventive, hybrid ideas of post-Holocaust Jewishness itself.' 4/24/15 * Jewish Book Council *Lehrer's monograph is a refreshing approach to the subject of Jewish Poland. As a study in tourism and heritage, the book provides an interesting addition to a growing field. * Slavic Review *Jewish Poland Revisited is a valuable book for anyone headed to Poland-or perhaps to any 'heritage tourism' location. And because it raises profound questions about Jewish engagement with other ethnicities, I suspect it will provoke reflection even in those with no interest in leaving home.Fall 2015 * Jewish Book World *Erica Lehrer gives a detailed, extensive, and fascinating account of the making, unmaking, and remaking of Poland's Jewish heritage. * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *Well researched and clearly written, Lehrer's book is a personal exploration and a learned analysis of a new and fascinating chapter in Polish Jewish history and society, and readers will gain a much deeper appreciation for recent developments in Poland as well as the country's ongoing role in contemporary Jewish culture and memory in North America, Israel, and other locales. . . . Indeed, this is one of those rare academic books that successfully fulfills the needs of both the popular and the academic communities. * Religious Studies Review *Lehrer offers a fresh and delightful portrait of Jewish renewal in Poland. . . . Highly recommended. * Choice *The unquiet nature of Poland as a Jewish heritage place is changing rapidly, and Lehrer's Jewish Poland Revisited is an up-to-date and detailed guide to the shifting landscape. * Canadian Jewish News *[T]he main asset of Lehrer's work is its huge potential and argumentative power to influence and change the prevailing . . . negative attitudes towards Poland among many people in the international Jewish community. Thanks to her work perhaps more Jews will no longer conceive Poland only as the site of Holocaust and as a widely antisemitic country, but rather as a place full of hope and future for the recognition of Polish Jewish culture, history and heritage and for the Jewish communities here. * New Eastern Europe *Jewish Poland Revisited is appropriate for a wide readership from specialists in cultural anthropology, graduate students, and college students to well educated general audiences. * American Ethnologist *Recommended. . . * AJL Reviews *[O]ne of the most nuanced and enthralling studies on Jewish space, heritage tourism, and the role that memory and identity play in the complex post-Holocaust and post-Communist Polish society. . . Jewish Poland Revisited is unequivocally an obligatory reading . . .April 2015 * H-Poland *The result of Lehrer's twenty years of intense engagement with Kazimierz is a tour-de-force volume as important for Jewish studies as it is for tourism studies and heritage studies. * H-SAE *Often the history of the Jews in Poland and Polish history are written as two distinct narratives. On the one hand, this separation is necessary to accommodate the different experiences and trajectories of the historical actors. On the other, the split often provides a disjointed view of Polish-Jewish relations and lived experiences in Poland. Lehrer's book is an important point of intersection between these narratives and it highlights the problem of a Polish history lacking Jews, and the important role of Jews in Polish culture and vice versa. * Holocaust and Genocide Studies *Jewish Poland Revisited is an important and insightful study, one that will hopefully lead to a wider range of new works devoted to Polish-Jewish relations and heritage in Cracow and beyond. * Center for Interdisciplinary Studies *This book is of interest to a wider readership than might be suggested by its title. Not only does the work provide a detailed ethnographic monograph about Jewish heritage and tourism in Kazimierz in Kracow, Poland, but it also analyses the challenges of ethnographic research and heritage interpretation more generally. The context of Kracow, Auschwitz and Jewish heritage in Poland is, of course, by no means unfamiliar to anyone interested in the complexities of heritage interpretation in a 'dissonant' environment. However, Erica Lehrer provides many thought-provoking and (for some) controversial alternative narratives to the construction of Jewish culture, heritage and identities post-Holocaust. * Journal of Heritage Tourism *Table of ContentsPrologue: Scene of ArrivalIntroduction: Poles and Jews: Significant Others1. Making Sense of Place: History, Mythology, Authenticity2. The Mission: Mass Jewish Holocaust Pilgrimage3. The Quest: Scratching the Heart4. Shabbos Goyim: Polish Stewards of Jewish Spaces5. Traveling Tschotschkes and "Post-Jewish" Culture6. Jewish like an Adjective: Expanding the Collective SelfConclusion: Towards a Polish-Jewish milieu de mémoire

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Book SynopsisArgues that within the festival of the goddess Gangamma ultimate reality is imagined as femaleTrade ReviewWhen the World Becomes Female is a great addition to the academic literature on South Asian religious, ritual, devotional, and goddess traditions. It is accessible enough for use in undergraduate courses on the same or as an example of ethnographic methodology. It is always in-depth enough for graduate courses and as a resource for scholars' and universities' libraries. * newbooks.asia *Joyce B. Flueckiger's new book When the World Becomes Female . . . is a rich and colorful analysis of the goddess Gangamma's festival and her devotees.7/3/15 * New Books in South Asian Studies *[Joyce Flueckiger addresses] directly questions of the relationships between a goddess and her devotees, and the ways that those devotees play with gender.April 2015 * H-Asia *This is a carefully crafted ethnography on the South Indian festival of the village goddess Gangamma in the pilgrimage town of Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. . . . Recommended. * Choice *Table of ContentsPreface and AcknowledgmentsNote on TransliterationIntroductionPart 1. Imaginative Worlds of Gangamma 1. An Aesthetics of Excess 2. Guising, Transformation, Recognition, and Possibility 3. Narratives of Excess and Access 4. Female-Narrated Possibilities of Relationship 5. Gangamma as Ganga River GoddessPart 2. Those Who Bear the Goddess 6. Wandering Goddess, Village Daughter: Avilala Reddys 7. Temple and Vesham Mirasi: The Kaikalas of Tirupati 8. The Goddess Served and Lost: Tattayagunta Mudaliars 9. Exchanging Talis with the Goddess: Protection and Freedom to Move 10. "Crazy for the Goddess": A Consuming RelationshipConclusion: Possibilities of a World Become FemaleGlossaryNotesReferencesIndex

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Book SynopsisExamines the many ways in which music has been a force of representation, nation building, and social action.Trade ReviewThis monumental contribution to Palestinian studies bridges the work of practitioners and scholars to make available rare oral histories, offer insights onto contemporary musical life, and redress issues of indigeneity and cultural resistance. Impressive in its scope and depth, the anthology's organizational structure enlivens debates between scholars while providing an historical apparatus for better understanding conditions of postcoloniality. It is an indispensable resource for those interested in Middle Eastern folklore, music, history, and politics. * Journal of Folklore Research *Overall, this book is a highly worthwhile read. With its variety of formats, it is appropriate for public libraries as well as academic ones. * Fontes Artis Musicae *Table of ContentsIntroduction Palestinian Music: Surviving in Song Moslih KanaanehPart 1: Background1. Palestinian Song, European Revelation, and Mission Rachel Beckles Willson2. A Musical Catastrophe: the direct impact of the Nakba on Palestinian musicians and musical life Nader Jalal and Issa Boulos interviewed by Heather Bursheh3. Negotiating the Elements: Palestinian Freedom Songs from 1967 to 1987 Issa BoulosPart 2: Identity4. Transgressing Borders with Palestinian Hip Hop Janne Louise Andersen5. Performing Self: Between Tradition and Modernity in the West Bank Sylvia Alajaji6. Realities for a Singer in Palestine Reem Talhami interviewed by Heather Bursheh7. Identity, Diaspora and Resistance in Palestinian Hip Hop Randa SafiehPart 3: Resistance8. Performative Politics: Folklore and Popular Resistance during the First Palestinian Intifada David A. McDonald9. Hamas' Musical Resistance Practices: Perceptions, Production, and Usage Michael Schulz and Carin Berg10. Palestinian Music: Between Artistry and Political Resistance Stig-Magnus Thorsén11. The Ghosts of Resistance: Dispatches from Palestinian Art and Music Yara El-Ghadban and Kiven Strohm

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe book is ethnographically rich and presents us with new ways of thinking about development practices and environmental politics broadly defined. More importantly, An Ethnography of Hunger makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the relationship between power, politics and the environment. The book, for many years to come, will provoke intellectual debate about the place of politics and the environment in Tanzania, Africa, and beyond. * Political and Legal Anthrology Review *Recommended. * Choice *Phillips's nuanced analysis of the lived experience of hunger, its embeddedness in social relationships, and its impact on political subjectivity are truly original and set this book apart from other anthropological studies of hunger, subsistence farming, or political subjectivity. -- Jennie E. Gurnet - Georgia State University * African Studies Review *Table of ContentsPreface AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Subsistence CitizenshipPART I: The Frames of Subsistence in Singida: Cosmology, Ethnography, HistoryChapter 1 Hunger in Relief: Village Life and Livelihood Chapter 2 The Unpredictable Grace of the Sun: Cosmology, Conquest, and the Politics of SubsistencePART II: The Power of the Poor on the Threshold of SubsistenceChapter 3 We Shall Meet at the Pot of Ugali: Sociality, Differentiation, and Diversion in the Distribution of FoodChapter 4 Crying, Denying, and Surviving Rural HungerPART III: Subsistence CitizenshipChapter 5 Subsistence versus DevelopmentChapter 6 Patronage, Rights, and the Idioms of Rural Citizenship Conclusion: The Seasons of Subsistence and CitizenshipNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisA practical and comprehensive appraisal of the value of philosophy in today's technological culture.Trade ReviewHickman offers a refinement of his earlier John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology (CH, Jun'90), with nine essays inviting consideration of some of the pivotal problems and prospects of our technological culture. The essays are concerned with the paradoxical fact that the techniques and technologies ostensibly developed as means of control are now viewed by many individuals as spinning out of control, or at the very least, as operating beyond their personal control. The author argues that not only is technology as culture the legitimate concern of philosophers, but that they can be cultural critics and reformers in the process. One of the most interesting chapters is devoted to ways in which a techno-scientific education might serve to confront antiscientific elements in modern society, including religious fundamentalism (Islamic as well as Christian) and the splintering effects of contemporary specialism. The author contrasts Dewey's own critique of technological culture with those of Jacques Ellul and Martin Heidegger. In the closing chapter he also provides his own program for the effective reform of technological culture. He puts philosophy to work so that productive pragmatism may transform technocracy to improve the present and enhance the potential for future growth of individuals and communities alike. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals; two—year technical program students.November 2001 -- J. W. Dauben * CUNY Herbert H. Lehman College *Table of ContentsPreliminary Table of Contents: AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Tuning Up Technology2. Technology and Community Life3. Productive Pragmatism, Critical Theory, and Agape4. Art, Technoscience, and Social Action5. Technoscience Education for a Life-Long Curriculum6. Literacy, Mediacy, and Technological Determinism7. Populism and the Cult of the Expert8. Hope, Salvation, and Responsibility9. The Next Technological RevolutionNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisA source book for American culture in the 1960s and 1970s: “suggested reading” from the Last Whole Earth Catalog, from Thoreau to James Baldwin.The Whole Earth Catalog was a cultural touchstone of the 1960s and 1970s. The iconic cover image of the Earth viewed from space made it one of the most recognizable books on bookstore shelves. Between 1968 and 1971, almost two million copies of its various editions were sold, and not just to commune-dwellers and hippies. Millions of mainstream readers turned to the Whole Earth Catalog for practical advice and intellectual stimulation, finding everything from a review of Buckminster Fuller to recommendations for juicers. This book offers selections from eighty texts from the nearly 1,000 items of “suggested reading” in the Last Whole Earth Catalog.After an introduction that provides background information on the catalog and its founder, Stewart Brand (interesting fact: Brand go

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"[An] intellectually adventurous, wide-ranging, and boldly integrative study." * Foreign Affairs *

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Book SynopsisA lyrical tribute to the diversity of trees, their physical beauty, their special characteristics and uses, and their ever-evolving meanings Since the beginnings of history trees have served humankind in countless useful ways, but our relationship with trees has many dimensions beyond mere practicality. Trees are so entwined with human experience that diverse species have inspired their own stories, myths, songs, poems, paintings, and spiritual meanings. Some have achieved status as religious, cultural, or national symbols. In this beautifully illustrated volume Fiona Stafford offers intimate, detailed explorations of seventeen common trees, from ash and apple to pine, oak, cypress, and willow. The author also pays homage to particular trees, such as the fabled Ankerwyke Yew, under which Henry VIII courted Anne Boleyn, and the spectacular cherry trees of Washington, D.C. Stafford discusses practical uses of wood past and present, tree diseases and environmental threats, and trees' potential contributions toward slowing global climate change. Brimming with unusual topics and intriguing facts, this book celebrates trees and their long, long lives as our inspiring and beloved natural companions.Trade Review"Everywhere [Stafford's] eye for detail brings the trees to life. . . . The Long, Long Life of Trees is elegant, engaging, impeccably written and packed with interest."—John Carey, Sunday Times"Nature Book of the Year."—Sunday Times"Beautifully produced, and each chapter describes a different species, from the dark yew to the friendly apple. . . . A chapter a day of this calming book will keep panic away."—Margaret Drabble, The Guardian "Books of the Year 2016""To describe a book as enchanting is usually to condescend it. Not this time. Fiona Stafford’s enchanting study is also stoutly built, plainly and stylishly written, admirably achieved as to both artistry and pedagogy, and as gripping as a good thriller, replete with plots and character."—Fred Inglis, Times Higher Education Supplement"A leisurely, lyrical reflection on 17 different species, from apple to yew, with special emphasis on the role that each has played in art and literature, myth and legend, medicine and technology. . . . Readers intrigued by the nexus between the cultural and the arboreal will enjoy her book."—Gerard Helferich, Wall Street Journal"For her book in celebration of trees, Fiona Stafford has done a prodigious amount of research . . . this is a very rich mixture – a great arboreal gallimaufry."—Derwent May, Times Literary Supplement"Fiona Stafford weaves together tales of their place in myth, painting, religion and literature, enlivened with her personal sense of wonder. This is a timely book; our trees face a growing threat from diseases that could leave gaps in our cultural landscape, as well as our woodlands and hedgerows."—Phil Gates, BBC Wildlife"It’s impossible to imagine a better book on the subject than this. It’s written with verve, pace, genuine wit and an inspired eye for the quirky fact or anecdote. Even those readers who don’t think they’re interested in trees will find that they are."— John Harding, Daily Mail"Fiona Stafford makes a welcome and entertaining contribution. She draws on material from fields including folklore, natural science, literature, cultural history, European art, ancient mythology and modern medicine to illuminate such trees central place in western civilisation."—Mark Cocker, Spectator"A lovely thing to have and to hold . . . combines natural with cultural and social history, taking account not only of the biology and ecology of plants, but also our relationship with them, past and present."—Mark Griffiths, Country Life"Instantly enriches your experience of the natural world, overlaying the trees around you in the myth, poetry and hidden meaning. . . . The abundance of information never feels like a deluge, as Stafford leads the reader through it with a light, entertaining and often poetic touch. This is a real treasure of a book."—Lia Leendertz, Gardens Illustrated"In this paean to the arboreal impulse, Fiona Stafford gets under the bark of the terrestrial giants whose natural history is interlaced with our own."—Barbara Kier, Nature"The author’s, ahem, root and branch treatment of trees is destined to be a definitive one. . . . By a copy as holiday reading and your plane’s descent over the Home Counties will offer you a chance to put your new-found knowledge into context."—James Anthony, Evening Standard“A book that would grace any book shelf. It is entertaining and informative for the enthusiastic dendrologist, and the casual reader.”—Colin How, Methodist Recorder“Fiona Stafford manages to combine an encyclopaedic knowledge of trees with an anecdotal style to create what all nature writers hope to achieve: something highly readable and informative.”—Simon Garnham, Shooting Times & Country Magazine"The Long, Long Life of Trees is a combination of personal commentary on Fiona Stafford’s love and appreciation of trees, coupled with a wealth of well-researched and fascinating examples of how trees have featured in history, art, commerce, culture and folklore. The book really helps to underline the importance of trees – past and present – and their continuing contribution as a force for good despite the many competing forces pitched against them over the centuries."—The Woodland Trust“A book that would grace any book shelf. It is entertaining and informative for the enthusiastic dendrologist, and the casual reader.”—Colin How, Methodist Recorder -- Colin How * Methodist Recorder *

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Book SynopsisDrawing on advances in social science, evolutionary biology, genetics, neuroscience and network science, Blueprint shows how and why evolution has placed us on a humane path -- and how we are united by our common humanity. For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society. In Blueprint, Nicholas A. Christakis introduces the compelling idea that our genes affect not only our bodies and behaviors, but also the ways in which we make societies, ones that are surprisingly similar worldwide. With many vivid examples -- including diverse historical and contemporary cultures, communities formed in the wake of shipwrecks, commune dwellers seeking utopia, online groups thrown together by design or involving artificially intelligent bots and even the tender and complex social arrangements of elephants and dolphins that so resemble our own - Christakis shows that, despite a human history replete with violence, we cannot escape our social blueprint for goodness. In a world of increasing political and economic polarisation, it''s tempting to ignore the positive role of our evolutionary past. But by exploring the ancient roots of goodness in civilisation, Blueprint shows that our genes have shaped societies for our welfare and that, in a feedback loop stretching back many thousands of years, societies have shaped and are still shaping, our genes today.

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Book SynopsisDo lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a sick sense of humour? What is John Updike''s deal anyway? And who won the Adult Video News'' Female Performer of the Year Award the same year Gwyneth Paltrow won her Oscar? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in his new book of hilarious non-fiction. For this collection, David Foster Wallace immerses himself in the three-ring circus that is the presidential race in order to document one of the most vicious campaigns in recent history. Later he strolls from booth to booth at a lobster festival in Maine and risks life and limb to get to the bottom of the lobster question. Then he wheedles his way into an L.A. radio studio, armed with tubs of chicken, to get the behind-the-scenes view of a conservative talkshow featuring a host with an unnatural penchant for clothing that only looks good on the radio. In what is sure to be a much-talked-about exploration of distinctly modern subjects, one of the sharpest minds of oTrade ReviewHe is eloquent, scathing, precise and very funny * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY *Wallace's voice comes zinging off the page, reinforcing the school of thought that says he's some type of maybe-genius doing something they haven't invented a word for yet * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *A writer of virtuostic talents who can seemingly do anything * NEW YORK TIMES *Wallace is a superb comedian of culture . . . his exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight * James Woods, GUARDIAN *

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Book SynopsisExplores Palo, a Kongo-inspired 'society of affliction' that is poorly understood at the margins of Cuban popular religion. This title draws upon the critiques of Western metaphysics, revealing what this little known practice can tell us about sensation, transformation, and redemption in the Black Atlantic.Trade Review"[Ochea's] work is unlikely to be superseded... Highly recommended." -- S. D. Glazier ChoiceTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Part One. The Dead 1. Isidra 2. Kalunga, the Ambient Dead 3. Little Corners 4. Responsive Dead Part Two. Palo Society 5. Emilio O'Farril 6. Teodoro 7. Palo Society 8. Decay 9. A Feast Awry 10. Virtudes Part Three. Prendas-Ngangas-Enquisos 11. Lucero Mundo 12. The Cauldron 13. Reckoning with the Dead 14. Nfumbe 15. Insinuation and Artifice Part Four. Palo Craft 16. Struggle Is Praise 17. Cristianas 18. Judias 19. Tormenta Ndoki 20. Storms of Lent Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExplores the social and material life of dreams in contemporary Cairo. This title guides the reader through landscapes of the imagination that feature Muslim dream interpreters who draw on Freud, reformists who dismiss various forms of divination as superstition, and ordinary believers who speak of moving encounters with the Prophet Muhammad.Trade Review"Engaging, theoretically sophisticated and ethnographically rich." -- Anthony Shenoda Social Anthropology "[This] exploration of Egyptian dream life is a unique, if not compelling, one." BidounTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments On Transliterations and Translations Prelude Introduction: Studying Dreams in Undreamy Times 1. Dream Trouble 2. Thresholds of Interpretation 3. Seeing the (In)visible 4. Poetry and Prophecy 5. The Ethics of the Visitational Dream 6. The Royal Road into the Unknown 7. Virtual Realities, Visionary Realities Afterword: On the Politics of Dreaming Notes Glossary Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisLooks at Japanese culinary history, delving into the writings of medieval and early modern Japanese chefs. This book traces the development of Japanese cuisine from 1400 to 1868. It shows how medieval 'fantasy food' rituals - where food was revered as symbol rather than consumed - were continued by early modern writers.Trade Review"This volume is a cogent reminder that to truly understand the importance of food in our lives, we must examine not merely its material role, but also its symbolic significance." Choice "There is no English-language research on the subject of early modern Japanese cuisine as extensive or imaginative." -- David Eason/University at Albany, SUNY Social Science Japan JrnlTable of ContentsList of Illustrations and Tables Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Japanese Cuisine, a Backward Journey 2. Of Knives and Men: Cutting Ceremonies and Cuisine 3. Ceremonial Banquets 4. The Barbarians' Cookbook 5. Food and Fantasy in Culinary Books 6. Menus for the Imagination 7. Deep Thought Wheat Gluten and Other Fantasy Foods Conclusion: After the Fantasies Appendix: The Southern Barbarians' Cookbook (Nanban ryorisho) Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExplores the historical trajectory of so-called modern globalization. This title challenges the long-held anthropological notion that non-European cultures and people were isolated and static entities before the advent of European colonialism and imperialism.Trade Review"The work of a powerful theoretical intelligence, but one informed by a lived sense of social realities." * Times Literary Supplement *"Wolf's intention is to show that European expansion not only transformed the historical trajectory of non-European societies but also reconstituted their historical accounts of their societies before European intervention. . . . His historical sweep and analytic breadth are astounding, and he gives approximately equal weight to historical 'winners' and 'losers.'" * American Journal of Sociology *"Wolf's empirical knowledge is exceptionally wide. . . . He relies on a skillful selection of phenomena in time and space that are reasonably representative of the totality. . . . The book is very well written and with a profoundly human touch." * Ethnos *"Wolf has created a history of connection rather than one of segregation. . . . This absorbing and stimulating book . . . provides a convincing and, dare I say, new perspective. . . . By emphasizing a common past, Wolf moves away from weary polarities of active 'white' centre and passive 'non- white' periphery and suggests both a more complex and a more informed sense of the relationship between Europe and the rest of the world." * European Update *"In this big and important book, Eric Wolf begins and ends with the assertion that anthropology must pay more attention to history. . . . It is with pleasure, then, that one reads a critical analysis that rejects pseudo- historical oppositions and explores with such care the historical processes by which primitive and peasant pasts have become a fundamentally altered primitive, peasant, and proletarian present." * Dialectical Anthropology *"Wolf's intention is to explain the development and nature of the chains of cause and consequence which linked populations in the post-1400 world. The outcome is a tightly structured and elegant book." * Oceania *Table of ContentsForeword to the 2010 Edition Preface (1997) Preface (1982) Part One Connections 1 Introduction 2 The World in 1400 3 Modes of Production 4 Europe, Prelude to Expansion Part Two In Search of Wealth 5 Iberians in America 6 The Fur Trade 7 The Slave Trade 8 Trade and Conquest in the Orient Part Three Capitalism 9 Industrial Revolution 10 Crisis and Differentiation in Capitalism 11 The Movement of Commodities 12 The New Laborers Afterword Bibliographic Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExamines how the Vietnam War has continued to serve as a stage for the shoring up of American imperialist adventure and for the (re)production of American and Vietnamese American identities.Trade Review"An important addition to the transnational history of the Vietnam War, Cold War global history, and the history of Asian migration to the United States... An Innovative work." -- Heonik Kwon American Journal of Sociology (AJS)Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. Critical Refuge(e) Studies 2. Militarized Refuge(es) 3. Refugee Camps and the Politics of Living 4. The "Good Warriors" and the "Good Refugee" 5. Refugee Remembering--and Remembrance 6. Refugee Postmemories: The "Generation After" 7. "The Endings That Are Not Over" Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisA multidisciplinary study of green and its significance from multiple perspectives: aesthetic, architectural, environmental, political, and social. It is centered on the Kingdom of Bahrain, where green has a long and deep history of appearing cooling, productive, and prosperous-a radical contrast to the hot and hostile desert.Trade Review"Doherty is as comfortable reflecting on the aesthetic aspects of colour as he is describing the ecological implications of property development... the portrait Doherty paints is of a fascinating, quickly changing, and - yes - paradoxical place." Environment and Urbanization "Beautifully written." Landscape Architecture MagazineTable of ContentsNotes on Transliteration and Translation Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction: Two Seas, Many Greens 1. Green Scenery 2. The Blueness of Green 3. How Green Can Become Red 4. The Memory of Date Palm Green 5. The Struggle for the Manama Greenbelt 6. The Promise of Beige 7. Brightening Green 8. The Whiteness of Green Notes Glossary List of Named Participants Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAlthough pain is a universal human experience, many view the pain of others as private, resistant to language, and, therefore, essentially unknowable. This book offers a perspective that considers how pain may be configured, managed, explained, and even experienced in deeply relational ways.Trade Review"Buchbinder's ethnography not only contributes substantially to our understanding of the social uses of explanations, it also exposes how the cultural meaning of these explanations depends on the language that is used and the social and cultural context in which it is delivered." SomatosphereTable of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Acronyms and Initialisms Transcription Conventions Introduction 1. The Bottom of the Funnel 2. The Smart Clinic 3. Sticky Brains 4. Treating the Family 5. Locating Pain in Societal Stress Conclusion Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisDrawing from the work of anthropologists, as well as that of economists, sociologists, historians, geographers, feminists, and post-Marxists, this book presents an anthropological approach to economy that highlights the centrality of communal processes in the market.Trade Review"This is the first book to propose a cross-cultural model of the economy inspired by anthropology. Gudeman succeeds magnificently in weaving the results of decades of anthropology into an original synthesis." Caroline Humphrey, University of Cambridge "A stimulating rethinking of anthropology's contribution to our understanding of economics. Clear and original, this highly readable book will disturb many people's habits of thought as well as expand & enrich them. In it, Gudeman shows how the economy is embedded in human life and society, and how it builds on community and the commons, as much as on individuality and the market. A signal contribution." Fredrik Barth, University of Oslo and Boston University "Given the clarity of the prose and the accessibility of the ideas, this book would make for an excellent textbook for an economic anthropology class. Indeed, it is hard to think of a textbook that compares. But the book is much more than this. It is clearly intended as a liberating framework within which anthropologists and fieldworkers can rethink economic issues in a much broader way." The Australian Journal of Anthropology "This is an important work, synthesizing a substantial body of anthropological and economic thought into a coherent whole." James G. Carrier, Journal of the Royal Anthropological InstituteTable of ContentsAcknowledgments. 1. Community, Market, and Culture. 2. Economy at the Base. 3. Sharing the Base. 4. The Great Estate: Power, Extraction, and Expansion. 5. Reciprocity and the Gift: Extending the Base. 6. Trade and Profit. 7. Profit on the Small. 8. Realms and Dialectics: Values in Production, Trade, and Use. 9. Political Economy Today. References. Index.

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Book SynopsisChapais shows that our knowledge about kinship and society in nonhuman primates supports, and informs, ideas proposed by Claude Lévi-Strauss. He contends that only a few evolutionary steps were required to bridge the gap between the kinship structures of our closest relatives—chimpanzees and bonobos—and the human kinship configuration.Trade ReviewBernard Chapais offers a powerful and controversial new account of hominid origins… His book offers us one more scenario of our human trajectory… Chapais‘ thesis urges us to consider very carefully why humans are so different. -- Monique Borgerhoff Mulder * Nature *Chapais has written a bold, new book that promises nothing less than the unveiling of the original, earliest form of human society and an account of how it developed over evolutionary time. The book indeed fulfills this promise, presenting a persuasive, well-argued, logical evolutionary scenario based on empirical data and a sound comparative method… Primeval Kinship presents powerful arguments concerning the origin and evolutionary path of human kinship. It reopens old questions, long abandoned, about the origins of human society, and addresses them with a brilliant synthesis of recent primate data. Chapais has demonstrated that primatology is now positioned to make significant contributions to the study of human kinship. This work will undoubtedly open further debate and inspire further research. It effectively dispels the view that human kinship is a purely cultural construction or that kinship can be understood outside the framework of our primate legacy. -- Linda Stone * Evolutionary Psychology *Primeval Kinship represents a bold effort to integrate two wildly disparate disciplines, primatology and cultural anthropology, to understand long-standing questions about the evolution of human society. With an increasing tendency toward specialization in science, there are few who dare step outside of their comfort zones to attempt broad, wide-ranging syntheses on problems that go to the heart of what it is to be human. In this regard, Chapais should be lauded for his labors and for an extremely stimulating read. His reasoned and careful treatment of the primate data provides considerable food for thought about how and why we have come to be the way we are. -- John C. Mitani * Primates *Primeval Kinship is a treasure chest of comparative research on human and primate social structure, organization, and behavior. This book will reignite and reinvigorate discussions of the evolution of primate and human society. It will be a model from which future social and physical anthropologists, primatologists, and social scientists can build. -- Robert Wald Sussman, Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Sciences, Washington University in St. LouisTable of Contents* Preface 1. The Question of the Origin of Human Society * A Forsaken Quest * The Deep Structure of Human Societies I. Primatologists As Evolutionary Historians 2. Primatology and the Evolution of Human Behavior * The Phylogenetic Decomposition Principle * Reconstructing the Exogamy Configuration 3. The Uterine Kinship Legacy * Primatological Theories and Primate Legacies * Appraising Primate Kinship * The Domain of Uterine Kindred in Primates * How Are Uterine Kin Recognized? * The Origin of Group-wide Kinship Structures 4. From Biological to Cultural Kinship * Beyond Consanguineal Kinship * The "Genealogical Unity of Mankind" * The Bilateral Character of Human Kinship 5. The Incest Avoidance Legacy * Elements of a Primatological Theory of Incest Avoidance * Humankind's Primate Heritage 6. From Behavioral Regularities to Institutionalized Rules * The Anthropologists' Treatment of the Primate Data * The Westermarck Knot * The Morality Problem * Lessons from Comparative Anatomy II. The Exogamy Configuration Decomposed 7. Levi-Strauss and the Deep Structure of Human Society * Reciprocal Exogamy as a Deep Structuring Principle * Reciprocal Exogamy as Archaic * The Convergence beyond the Critiques * Levi-Strauss and the Primate Data 8. Human Society Out of the Evolutionary Vacuum * Leslie White and the Primate Origins of Exogamy * Elman Service and the Primitive Exogamous Band * Robin Fox and the Initial Deconstruction of Exogamy 9. The Building Blocks of Exogamy * Pinpointing the Distinctiveness of Exogamy * Reconstructing Human Society: The Task Ahead * A Once Irreducible System III. The Exogamy Configuration Reconstructed 10. The Ancestral Male Kin Group Hypothesis * The Patrilocal Band Model * Male Philopatry in Apes * The Homology Hypothesis * Updating the Ancestral Male Kin Group Hypothesis * The Gorilla Alternative 11. The Evolutionary History of Pair-Bonding * The "Invariant Core of the Family" * Pair-Bonds as Parental Partnerships * The Pitfall of the Modern Family Reference * A Two-Step Evolutionary Sequence * Monogamy as a Special Case of Polygyny * The Evolutionary History of the Sexual Division of Labor 12 Pair-Bonding and the Reinvention of Kinship * The Fundamental Equation of the Exogamy Configuration * Kinship in the Ancestral Male Kin Group * Fatherhood * The Institutionalized Denial of Paternity * The Development of Agnatic Kinship Structures 13. Biparentality and the Transformation of Siblingships * Chimpanzee Siblingships * Fatherhood and the Evolution of Strong Brotherhoods * Fatherhood and the Brother--Sister Bond * The Added Effect of Shorter Interbirth Intervals 14. Beyond the Local Group: The Rise of the Tribe * Male Pacification as a Prerequisite for the Tribe * Females as Peacemakers: The Consanguinity Route * Females as Peacemakers: The Affinity Route * The Initial Impetus * The Prelinguistic Tribe 15. From Male Philopatry to Residential Diversity * Some Serious Discrepancies * The Emergence of Residential Diversity * Ancestral Patrilocality and Grandmothering 16. Brothers, Sisters, and the Founding Principle of Exogamy * The First Step: Outmarriage * Affinal Brotherhoods and the Origin of Exogamy Rules * From Siblings-in-Law to Cross-Cousins * The "Atom of Kinship" Revisited IV. Unilineal Descent 17. Filiation, Descent, and Ideology * The African Model of Unilineal Descent Groups * The Chestnut within the Model 18. The Primate Origins of Unilineal Descent Groups * Group Membership through Birth * Kinship-Based Segmentation * The Genealogical Boundaries of Exogamy * The Unisexual Transmission of Status * Primitive Corporateness * A Multilevel Structure of Solidarity 19. The Evolutionary History of Human Descent * Female Kin Groups as Precultural Matriclans * The Residential Basis of Proto--Descent Groups * The Latent Patriclan * Matrilineality as a Male Affair 20. Conclusion: Human Society as Contingent * References * Index

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Book SynopsisAnthropologist Bruce Albert captures the poetic voice of Davi Kopenawa, shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon, in this unique reading experience—a coming-of-age story, historical account, and shamanic philosophy, but most of all an impassioned plea to respect native rights and preserve the Amazon rainforest.Trade ReviewA perfectly grounded account of what it is like to live an indigenous life in communion with one’s personal spirits. We are losing worlds upon worlds. -- Louise Erdrich * New York Times Book Review *What does it mean when someone says they can understand the inner lives of animals, trees, or even forests? Bruce Albert and Davi Kopenawa provide a vivid sense of this in The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman. The Yanomami of the Amazon, like all the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia, have experienced the end of what was once their world. Yet they have survived and somehow succeeded in making sense of a wounded existence. They have a lot to teach us. -- Amitav Ghosh * The Guardian *One of the first and best autobiographical narratives by an indigenous lowland Amazonian…The book is a mix of autobiography, history, personal philosophy, and cultural criticism of whites for their destruction of the world, worship of the material, and lack of spirituality and vitality…The book is not only finely detailed and full of challenging philosophical points, it also contains much humor…Ultimately, it is Kopenawa’s voice that tells us who he is, who his people are, and who we are to them. It is complex and nuanced; I’d go so far as to call The Falling Sky a literary treasure: invaluable as academic reading, but also a must for anyone who wants to understand more of the diverse beauty and wonder of existence. -- Daniel L. Everett * New Scientist *I have just read your manuscript and am enormously impressed by this work of such powerful methodological interest and prodigious documentary richness. It wholly captivates the reader yet is simultaneously so complex, raising so many questions. -- Claude Lévi-Strauss, letter to Bruce Albert, July 10, 2006The words of the Yanomami shamans are powerful: they conjure up another world responsible for this one. Davi Kopenawa proves it for us. Not only do his words give us an unparalleled experience of the life of the Yanomami, but his moving description of their struggle to save the forest and themselves from destruction by the whites reveals the modern tragedy of indigenous peoples in ways we never imagined. -- Marshall Sahlins, University of ChicagoKopenawa provides a fascinating glimpse into his life as well as into Yanomami cultural beliefs and practices, setting his story against the various threats the Yanomami people and their forest have faced since the 1960s...Kopenawa's story is eloquent, engaging, and thought-provoking, exuding heartfelt wisdom. This extraordinary and richly detailed work is an outstanding explication of the Yanomami worldview as well as a plea to all people to respect and preserve the rain forest. -- Elizabeth Salt * Library Journal (starred review) *This engaging text, the autobiography of Yanomami shaman and activist Davi Kopenawa, translated with some prefatory remarks, appendixes, notes, and additional biographical comments by anthropologist Albert, offers a valuable insider perspective on a much-studied Amazonian society, with rich details on myth and religious practices, including shamanic initiation. Albert frames this story with a half-century-long history of exploitation by Westerners, ranging from anthropologists to government officials and developers. Kopenawa’s direct experiences with, and assessment of, his white interlocutors is often charged with a well-justified anger, but through the course of his personal history the need for mutual respect and, where appropriate, collaboration is likewise made evident. The text offers a trenchant critique of the characterization of the Yanomami as humanity’s primordial ‘fierce people,’ highlighting the beauty and virtues of these people while reminding readers of Western cultural and ecological destruction in the Amazon (an exceptionally virulent brand of fierceness). -- C. J. MacKenzie * Choice *Anthropologists and other specialists will find much to relish in this beautifully crafted evocation of Yanomami culture and philosophy. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews taped in native language, it is enriched by almost a hundred pages of footnotes, ethnobiological and geographic glossaries, bibliographical references, detailed indexes and, last but not least, an essay by Bruce Albert on how he wrote the book. While the book resonates with current Western metaphysical angst about finitude, it is written principally as a long shamanic chant that opens up a multitude of interior journeys and provides a new consciousness of the world as a whole… The Yanomami have suffered the effects of deadly epidemics, land dispossession and aggressive missionary evangelism. The resulting break in the flow of knowledge between older and younger generations, a lack of communication between indigenous and nonindigenous interlocutors, and a general loss of connection with the natural environment, are common problems. Despite remarkable political gains in the past thirty years, including the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2007, a health and social crisis is deepening within many indigenous communities. As The Falling Sky makes plain, this crisis is rooted in the symbolic violence exercised by the dominant society, which fails to recognize the value (rather than just the right) of being different and of living in a distinct human collectivity… It is, above all, a splendid story told by an exceptional man, who barely knows how to read and write. That the story was written down by an ethnographer who elected not to adjust his research to the canons of academia adds to its importance. The use of the first-person singular to tell the tale involves a fusion of authorial voices, a sign of mutual recognition and true friendship if ever there was one; it lends a musical quality to the resulting ‘heterobiography.’ Through their sonorous presence, the numerous beings evoked in the shamanic chant usher in the fertility of life as shamans see and feel it. What better way to entice readers away from everyday forgetfulness than to invite them to hear the forest’s vast and timeless symphony? -- Laura Rival * Times Literary Supplement *The Falling Sky is several things. It is the autobiography of Davi Kopenawa, one of Brazil’s most prominent and eloquent indigenous leaders. It is the most vivid and authentic account of shamanistic philosophy I have ever read. It is also a passionate appeal for the rights of indigenous people and a scathing condemnation of the damage wrought by missionaries, gold miners, and white people’s greed. The footnotes alone harbor monographs on Yanomami botany and zoology, mythology, ritual, and history. Most of all, The Falling Sky is an elegy to oral tradition and the power of the spoken word… Kopenawa’s elaboration of shamanic concepts goes beyond ethnography and becomes a new genre of native philosophical inquiry. When an indigenous narrator this articulate produces an original exegesis of his own worldview, anthropology and anthropologists have become almost obsolete… Like his ancestors, whose voices will continue to echo in shamans’ songs after his death, Davi Kopenawa has made sure that his own powerful words will be preserved. -- Glenn Shepard, Jr. * New York Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisFrom the extravagant use of pepper in the Middle Ages to the Protestant bourgeoisie's love of coffee to the reason why fashionable Europeans stopped sniffing tobacco and starting smoking it, Schivelbusch looks at how the appetite for pleasure transformed the social structure of the Old World. Illustrations.

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Book SynopsisWesterners tend to divide the political world into good democracies and bad authoritarian regimes. But the Chinese political model does not fit neatly in either category. Over the past three decades, China has evolved a political system that can best be described as political meritocracy. The China Model seeks to understand the ideals and the reality of this unique political system. How do the ideals of political meritocracy set the standard for evaluating political progress (and regress) in China? How can China avoid the disadvantages of political meritocracy? And how can political meritocracy best be combined with democracy? Daniel Bell answers these questions and more. Opening with a critique of one person, one vote as a way of choosing top leaders, Bell argues that Chinese-style political meritocracy can help to remedy the key flaws of electoral democracy. He discusses the advantages and pitfalls of political meritocracy, distinguishes between different ways of combining meritocracy and democracy, and argues that China has evolved a model of democratic meritocracy that is morally desirable and politically stable. Bell summarizes and evaluates the China model--meritocracy at the top, experimentation in the middle, and democracy at the bottom--and its implications for the rest of the world. A timely and original book that will stir up interest and debate, The China Model looks at a political system that not only has had a long history in China, but could prove to be the most important political development of the twenty-first century.Trade ReviewA Financial Times Summer Books Selection Selected as one of Financial Times (FXXT.com) Best Books of 2015 A Guardian Best Holiday Reads of 2015 selection "[I]t is part of the job of academics to ask fundamental questions that challenge conventional thinking. Bell performs this role admirably in lucid, jargon-free prose that leads the reader back to some of the most fundamental questions in political philosophy - refracted through the experience of contemporary China ... I found the questions that Bell raised consistently stimulating."--Gideon Rachman, Financial Times "Bell ... has written a fascinating study. Open-minded readers will find it equips them with a more intelligent understanding of Chinese politics and, no less valuable, forces them to examine their devotion to democracy... [The China Model] isn't just for those who want to better understand China. More than anything I've read for a while, it also forced me to think about what's good and bad about Western systems of government. From start to finish the book is a pleasure and an education."--Clive Crook, Bloomberg View "Bell makes a solid and worthy case for why the outside world might want to think about the Chinese experiment in governance a bit more deeply... This is a very clearly written book."--Kerry Brown, Asian Review of Books "The China Model ... is as important for us as it is for China. If the book brings us some humility about the ways in which an undemocratic model like China's can be deeply rooted in history and culture, it will have done good work. But it will do something better if it can remind us that our own history isn't over."--Rob Goodman, POLITICO "In careful, clear and measured prose, [Bell] works hard to overcome prejudice, defuse emotions and discuss the pros and cons in the cool language of political philosophy. This, perhaps, is the book's greatest contribution."--James Miller, Literary Review of Canada "Serious re-evaluations of democracy are inhibited by two factors: fears about the alternatives turning sour and a century of educational indoctrination that makes imagining the alternatives a frightful exercise. Bell's book should be read as an antidote (or if you prefer, an elixir) to overcome these doubts."--Siddharth Singh, Mint "This book is a welcome addition to the expanding literature on the emerging 'China model'... Bell's argument, based on his long-term observation of China's political development, provides a nuanced, thought-provoking view of the meritocratic aspects of the Chinese system that have been obscured by the broad label 'authoritarianism.' It offers an original explanation for the resilience of the Chinese regime and essentially challenges the widely held notion that liberal democracy is the universally desirable political outcome for modern societies."--Choice "Bell is not an apologist for China but someone who teaches us to ask different questions. And these questions are fascinating."--Mariana Mazzucato, Financial Times, a FT Best Book of 2015 "A must-read scholarly account of China's political development with stimulating questions, powerful analysis as well as theoretically relevant arguments."--Bingdao Zheng, Chinese Political Science Review "This book is a must-read text for all political scientists, in particular, for those who study democracy and democratization. It can open their eyes and help them to move out of their comfort zone to examine the tough and pressing issues in the real world in which democracy and meritocracy must be combined to improve democratic government and solve many practical issues."--He Baogang, Perspectives in Politics "A deeply stimulating contribution to normative political theory."--Thomas Pangle, Perspectives in Politics "In conclusion, Bell's book is interesting and intriguing. It argues convincingly that every political system is a trade-off, and asks important questions about the US (electoral) democracy and Chinese (communist) meritocracy. Bell also develops his own model, combining elements from both."--Dao "A must-read scholarly account of China's political development with stimulating questions, powerful analysis as well as theoretically relevant arguments. The discussion of political elite-recruiting system impressively spans thousands of years, from ages of empires to nowadays, and a number of countries and regions including United States, China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan among others. One has to admire the comparative perspective the author puts in various historical periods and social contexts."--Bingdao Zheng, Chinese Political Science Review "A very well-written book that presents original scholarship."--Zhiming Cheng, Political Studies Review "Reading Bell is rewarding... This book is more than a bold challenge to democracy: it serves as a sincere invitation to a sober and less ideologically loaded dialogue between East and West."--Tao Wang, Asian Journal of Comparative PoliticsTable of ContentsPreface to the Paperback Edition ix Acknowledgments xxi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Is Democracy the Least Bad Political System? 14 Chapter 2 On the Selection of Good Leaders in a Political Meritocracy 63 Chapter 3 What's Wrong with Political Meritocracy 110 Chapter 4 Three Models of Democratic Meritocracy 151 Concluding Thoughts: Realizing the China Model 179 Notes 199 Selected Bibliography 283 Index 307

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the 2016 George L. Mosse Prize, American Historical Association""Winner of the 2016 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature, McGill University""Winner of the 2016 Stansky Book Prize, North American Conference on British Studies""Winner of the 2018 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies, Nanovic Institute""Winner of the 2016 PROSE Award in European & World History, Association of American Publishers""2016 Gold Medal Winner in World History, Independent Publisher Book Awards""One of The Guardian’s Best Books of 2015, selected by Alison Light""One of Flavorwire’s 10 Best Books by Academic Publishers in 2015""One of Flavorwire’s 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2015""Hardly a sentence in Laqueur's long book is wasted."---John Gray, New York Review of Books"[A] sprawling meditation on mortal remains. . . . Laqueur offers an intricate historical narrative about the place the dead occupy in our lives. . . . The Work of the Dead is a methodologically bracing book."---Thomas Meaney, London Review of Books"Laqueur effectively shows that remains of the dead matter long after they decompose . . . [and his] engaging writing style enlivens this somber subject." * Library Journal *"The product of prodigious research and a subtle and sophisticated knowledge of history, anthropology, and philosophy, The Work of the Dead is as magnificent--and mindboggling--as it is monumental."---Glenn C. Altschuler, Huffington Post"Enormously detailed and absorbing. . . . [A] remarkably supple and fascinating study, providing as it were the sociological and forensic underpinning of every ghost story ever told. . . . The Work of the Dead [is] both provocative and, you should pardon the term, lively (and readers should be sure not to miss the wonderfully argumentative end notes). It'll change the way you look at being dead and buried."---Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly"Laqueur's book is a monumental undertaking, teeming with so many absorbing anecdotes and so much vivid information that it can be read either compulsively or for an hour a day, just to keep in sight of the nub of our fears and the often romantic absurdity of our hopes and superstitions."---Gregory Day, Sydney Morning Herald"This massive, mesmerizing work contains much that's worth pondering." * Publishers Weekly *"Monumentally learned. . . . Laqueur's mastery of this history, and his limpid prose, make this a deeply engaging text."---Deborah Lutz, Times Higher Education"The Work of the Dead is an enormous, erudite, sprawling, garrulous, exhausting and brilliant piece of work. And it never forgets that thread of 'intuition and feeling'." * Economist *"A major work of scholarship on an undiscovered country, the land of the dead, which, as it turns out, has had major implications for the living. Laqueur's book. . . aims to show that our care for the dead (‘materially and imaginatively') marks ‘the sign of our emergence from the order of nature into culture.'"---Jonathan Sturgeon, Flavorwire"[The Work of the Dead] is, quite simply, an extraordinary book. . . . [I]n short, this is the work of a great historian doing what we all do, only better: reckoning with death as we bide time until our own."---Darrin M. McMahon, Literary Review"Magnificent. . . . Dazzling in its scope, expertly researched and crafted,The Work of the Dead shows us what is important about our humanity and longings. It is also a page-turner and a terrific read."---Sharon R. Kaufman, Los Angeles Review of Books"After being asked what he would like to have done with his body after he died, the Greek philosopher Diogenes replied that he wanted it thrown out for animals to devour. Thousands of years later, his answer can still shock. Thomas Laqueur explains why in his sweeping history of the way humans have grappled with death--an abstract terror made concrete by the bodies that remain when the dead have passed on. Combining anthropological reflections on the cultural functions of the dead with historical investigations of the shifting ways their bodies have been treated, Laqueur uses the stubborn resistance to Diogenes' provocation to explore the world the dead left behind."---Tim Shenk, Dissent"Poetically, powerfully sweeping across human history, Laqueur explores what the rituals of caring for the departed reveal about the living. Their story is ours; their absence shapes art and architecture, communities and civilizations. In every era and every culture, Laqueur finds the dead body imbued with meaning." * Swarthmore Bulletin *"Laqueur's venerable research all leads to one principal concluding thought, which is that while we can know logically that the human corpse is unrelated to the personality it once held, it is the most intimately connected material thing that is left of a life."---Juniper Quin, SevenPonds"Do the dead matter? This is the central question in this meticulously researched, all-encompassing exploration of our mortal remains. . . . In this intimate and often very personal reflection, Laqueur asserts that we need our rituals to serve the dead to smooth over the rent that is caused in the passing of those we love. . . This thought-provoking tome, erudite and finely written, seemingly encapsulates all past uttering on the dead in our fleetingly short lives."---Julie Peakman, History Today"[An] invariably fascinating treatment of a morbid subject." * Choice *"One meticulously argumented stroll through time and beliefs, highly attractive in its depth and far-reachingness. . . . Laqueur has succeeded where many others had not: he opened for us a tiny window on the concept of death and dying without violating historiographic objectiveness or trying to impose judgements or values."---Amir Muzur, European Journal of Bioethics"We look at the masterpiece with awe: How is it possible to do so much, to say so much about the dead in so many societies over such a broad sweep of time, even in a book as capacious as this?"----Annette Becker, American Historical Review"The Work of the Dead is packed with information, surprises, unaccustomed lore and learning, and Laqueur shows throughout a sturdy curiosity, as he digs unflinchingly around and into his chosen topic."---Marina Warner, London Review of Books"Monumental." * New English Landscape *"Laqueur brings prodigious compassion, erudition, and independence of thought to his task: every page is instructive, whether he is discussing the pollution caused by crematoria, the problems of pauper burials, the belief that undressing a corpse and opening windows makes it easier for the soul to leave the body, or just the listing of the names of the dead."---David Ganz, The Review of Politics"Historians of death in particular should thus keep this book at hand. Richly illustrated, detailed and accessible, The Work of the Dead is infused with approximately 35 years of travel, conversations, discoveries in archives and personal experience. It invites all readers to think further about the role that the dead play in the way that we live."---Martin Robert, Mortality"This book is a monumental Magnum Opus covering the cultural history of how we are treated mortal remains. . . . This is surely the definitive treatment of the subject, a landmark and highly readable work."---David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer

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Book SynopsisMost incidents of urban unrest in recent decades - including the riots in France, Britain and other Western countries - have followed lethal interactions between the youth and the police. Usually these take place in disadvantaged neighborhoods composed of working-class families of immigrant origin or belonging to ethnic minorities. These tragic events have received a great deal of media coverage, but we know very little about the everyday activities of urban policing that lie behind them. Over the course of 15 months, at the time of the 2005 riots, Didier Fassin carried out an ethnographic study in one of the largest precincts in the Paris region, sharing the life of a police station and cruising with the patrols, in particular the dreaded anti-crime squads. Far from the imaginary worlds created by television series and action movies, he uncovers the ordinary aspects of law enforcement, characterized by inactivity and boredom, by eventless days and nights where minor infractions givTrade Review“Enforcing Order is an intriguing read, not least for what it reveals about the politics of law and order, and of policing, in France in recent times” Tim Newburn, LSE, LSE Review of Books "Powerful, distressing and thought-provoking. The book is based on 15 months of fieldwork, an undertaking unprecedented in France and one that, as the difficulties of access Fassin encountered suggest, will not be conducted again for some time." Times Higher Education "Fassin’s book – the most significant contribution to the public anthropology of policing – has opened up space to discuss the unresolved tension underlying the contemporary state, that between providing security and protecting human rights." Social Anthropology "Fassin has written a brilliant example of public anthropology. This ethnography of the anti-crime squads of the French police powerfully captures the institutionalization of racism and violence against poor youth and immigrants. His book must reach the widest possible audience because these paramilitaries operating out of sight of the general public with the complicity of politicians, career bureaucrats and the courts must be dismantled." Philippe Bourgois, University of Pennsylvania "This vivid description of the daily routines of police squads operating in under-privileged Parisian suburbs reinstates ethnography as a powerful tool for revealing how social exclusion works. By bringing to life, from the point of view of its officers, how the police consolidates social hierarchies, Fassin reminds us eloquently that the behavior of its police forces is the best index of the state of a democracy." Philippe Descola, Collège de France "A fascinating read – a brilliant, deep plunge into the lives, routines, racial tensions, sometimes violence, and intricate moral reasoning of the police officers in an anti-crime brigade in the French banlieues during a heated time of rioting in Paris. It blends a subtle analysis of the moral economy of the police with rigorous ethnographic detail and a genuine honesty or transparency on Didier Fassin’s part. It is a very important contribution to our understanding of police practices in this new age of security." Bernard Harcourt, University of ChicagoTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Preliminary Remarks Preface to the Engish Edition Prologue - Interpellation In which the author comes to understand that it is sometimes dangerous to wait for a bus in the outer city on New Year’s Eve. How policing practice provides the language for a philosophical theory, and how a philosophical theory supplies the meaning of policing practice. That this is not a testimony, and that indignation is not rage. Introduction - Inquiry How the present research was authorized and then forbidden, and that this censorship is revelatory of petty exceptions in a democratic regime. That an ethnography of the police requires resisting the dual temptation of exoticism and culturalism. That a study is often the result of the converging effects of chance and necessity. Chapter 1 - Situation How an imaginary of war came to be established in the relations between the police and the projects. That a brief history of the social question and security issues is essential in order to understand the context in which law enforcement faces classes reputed to be dangerous. That the creation of more aggressive special units was judged necessary to deal with the alleged disorder in the outer cities. Chapter 2 - Ordinary How the daily work of police officers is far removed from the image they had of it when they joined the force, and the illusion they continue to maintain of it. That evaluation of the work of urban patrols yields such unexpected results that it is not taken into account by government. That inaction generates action, and what this phenomenon of spontaneous generation means for the residents of the projects. Chapter 3 - Interactions How stops and frisks serve purposes other than those they are supposed to serve, and prove more effective in perpetuating a social order than in maintaining public order. That the way police officers speak about the individuals with whom they deal throws light on their way of operating in the outer cities. That the theater of police intervention sometimes plays comedies in which not all spectators laugh at the same moment. Chapter 4 - Violence How a criminal court can offer valuable lessons on excessive use of force by the police in the outer cities. That by not reducing violence to its physical aspect and not limiting the definition of it to the legal sense, one can gain a different understanding of it. That there are many ways of preventing police brutality from being prosecuted Chapter 5 - Discrimination How police officers and sociologists challenge the existence of discriminatory practices that the rest of the French population is convinced prevail. That racist ideas do not automatically lead to discriminatory practices, but that the two are far from incompatible. That institutions show more tolerance toward institutional racism than toward its victims. Chapter 6 - Politics How some signs are not deceiving, but may nevertheless be surprising in a democratic regime. That local practices enjoy great autonomy with respect to national guidelines, but that government policy has some influence on the everyday work of law enforcement. That the corollary of the increasing criminalization of behaviors is an unprecedented casting of the police as victims. Chapter 7 - Morality How police officers disappointed by the justice of the courts began to practice street justice. That jokes in the precinct can prove more serious than is customarily maintained. That a code of ethics is not enough to interpret the ethical forces at work in the behavior of police officers and the moral impasse in which the police find themselves. Conclusion - Democracy How the French police preferred the model of the cop in the United States to the style of the British bobby, and what was the result. That the imposition of the rationale of security has a high social cost for contemporary societies. That the interests of ethnography are intimately bound with those of democracy. Epilogue - Time In which the author looks back to a not-so-distant past, observes that the more things change the more they do not stay the same, wonders about the present as it is experienced by certain segments of French society and ignored by the others, and expresses concerns about the future. Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisAn amnesia victim asking "Who am I?" means something different from a confused adolescent asking the same question. Marya Schechtman takes issue with analytic philosophy's emphasis on the first sort of question to the exclusion of the second. The...Trade ReviewSchechtman has greatly enriched the discussion of personal identity. This stimulating book enlarges our sense of the philosophically possible. -- Christopher Williams, University of Nevada at Reno * The Philosophical Review *This excellent and engaging book succeeds in raising questions about the dominant approach to asking questions about our identities and our concern for the future, as well as in offering... the beginnings of an alternative way to ask and answer such questions. That's quite a lot of philosophical work in such a short book. * Ethics *

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Book SynopsisAn ethnography of recent societal transformations in Mongolia and their impact on local belief systems.Trade ReviewNot Quite Shamans is a beautifully written, rich, and detailed ethnographic account of a remote corner of postsocialist Mongolia. Empathetic but never apologetic, Pedersen presents a balanced account of what was certainly a very arduous, evenlife-threatening, fieldwork research.... [N]ot Quite Shamans will certainly become a seminal text, not only for Mongolian and Inner Asian specialists but indeed as a detailed and perceptive analysis of postsocialism and shamanism. -- Franck Billé * Current Anthropology *A fascinating journey through the hitherto little remarked complexities of post-socialist rural Mongolia, where formerly suppressed and semi-destroyed shamanic and Buddhist traditions have resurfaced to compete with one another and also with modernity.... Composed with scholarly erudition, thoughtful reflection, and true storyteller acumen, this engaging account fills a significant void in understanding contemporary Mongolian society. Its wealth of useful ethnographic and linguistic detail offers much to anthropologists and social historians alike. Summing up: Highly recommended. * Choice *In this book, the author claims that the agsan ataman is a typical image of a rural village in postsocialist Mongolia. As the instrument of occult forces whose manifestation is beyond his control, the agsan person is like a shaman, but not quite (p. 4). The author calls his study 'shamanism without shamans', because he studied not proper shamans but half-shamans and shaman-like cases.... [T]his work is an enormous contribution to studies deconstructing shamanism. -- Bumochir Dulam * Nationalities Papers *It is tricky to define anything using a negative, especially in a book title. Yet Morten Pedersen has succeeded in making his theme of perpetual transitional instability in Mongolia one that centers on the concept of not quite shamans. He argues that those Mongolian shamans of the Darhad region conventionally trained to control dark spirit worlds have all but disappeared, given the repressions and pressures of communists, and before them, Buddhists.... Pedersen's work is a fine contribution to the anthropological literature on Mongolia.... -- Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer * Anthropology and Humanism *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 Shamanic States 2 The Shamanic Predicament 3 Layered Lands, Layered Minds 4 The Shaman's Two Bodies 5 Mischievous Souls 6 ConclusionBibliography Glossary Index

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Book SynopsisThis is a story of how work gets done. It is also a study of how field service technicians talk about their work and how that talk is instrumental in their success. In his innovative ethnography, Julian E. Orr studies the people who repair...Trade ReviewHow ironic, at an historic moment when technology has assumed a taken-for-granted status in the workplace, that scholarship on organizations, work, and technology has only recently begun to find its feet. With this splendid ethnography of work practices by technicians who service photocopy machines, Julian Orr has made a major incursion into this territory, producing a volume that bridges disciplinary boundaries by joining the literature of organizations, occupations, and work with that of science and technology studies. -- Diane Vaughn * Administrative Science Quarterly *This book should be of value to anyone interested in studies of work practice, and to those who study technical work in particular. -- Bonalyn J. Nelsen * Industrial and Labor Relations Review *

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Book SynopsisModern Forests is an environmental, institutional, and cultural history of forestry in colonial eastern India. By carefully examining the influence of regional political formations and biogeographic processes on land and forest management, this book offers an analysis of the interrelated social and biophysical factors that influenced landscape change. Through a cultural analysis of powerful landscape representations, Modern Forests reveals the contention, debates, and uncertainty that persisted for two hundred years of colonial rule as forests were identified, classified, and brought under different regimes of control and were transformed to serve a variety of imperial and local interests.The author examines the regionally varied conditions that generated widely different kinds of forest management systems, and the ways in which certain ideas and forces became dominant at various times. Through this emphasis on regional socio-political processes and ecologies, tTrade Review"Among the dozen or so full-length studies [about India's forests] that have been published, this one stands out for the clarity of the argument and lucidity of style. . . . This is a book that sets standards that will be hard to equal, let alone surpass. It is a must for anyone interested in going beyond the superficial in knowing about the past and future of [India's] forests."—Down to Earth" . . . Modern Forests comes as a pleasant addition to a tradition of path-breaking works that combine disciplines and transcend artificial boundaries to look at the real world. Indeed, the book is astonishing as much for its academic analysis as for the breadth of the canvas. . . . [It] is a captivating story of the emergence of regimes of governance in Bengal over 200 years of colonial rule"—Seminar: Protecting Nature"This is an outstanding book. Ostensibly dealing with the making and enforcing of forest conservation policy in Bengal, it ranges expertly across a vast terrain of European intellectual history, South Asian cultural anthropology, and colonial and postcolonial theory. It enlightens—in the proper sense—both through its grasp of historical detail and its comprehension of complex arguments."—American Historical Review"Quietly, but definitively, [Sivaramakrishnan] devastates a bent of postcolonial theorizing that assumes the colonial context to have been marked by a neat binary opposition between Western modernity and indigenous traditionalism."—American Historical Review"[Sivaramakrishnan] valuably reminds us that history consists, perhaps even more, of what people actually did than what they said."—American Historical Review"What emerges from [Sivaramakrishnan's] study has importance much beyond the realm of forest history. Inter alia, he produces a vivid portrait of British colonialism at work in India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."—American Historical Review"Using a rich blend of anthropology and social theory, Professor Sivaramakrishnan traces the complex webs of social hierarchy as well as political conflict on the land, which shaped a forest frontier region of Bengal. The author's full command of his subject for the pre-colonial period enables him to make firm assessments about the transformation of land and society under European rule."—Environmental History"The elegance and depth of [Sivaramakrishnan's] presentation makes Modern Forests an outstanding contribution to our discussion of the colonial past's formative influence on today's dilemmas."—Environmental History

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Book SynopsisUses textiles to understand gender and economy in Norse societies. Michele Hayeur Smith examines Viking textiles as evidence of the little-known work of women in the Norse colonies that expanded from Scandinavia across the North Atlantic in the ninth century AD.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Lisa Uddin’s highly original and compelling argument considers modern zoos as phenomena of urban, suburban, and exurban hopes and fears. The book makes clear that ever-more-ambitious plans to build a finally great zoo are deeply tied to our desires not for a better life for captive animals but for a better life for ourselves."—Nigel Rothfels, author of Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo"[An] interesting, and perhaps surprising, perspective on urban and racial issues."—Planning Magazine"Zoo history is more than simply that-- it appears to also be a history of the human condition."—CHOICE"An important and thought-provoking contribution to thinking about the place of zoos in modern society."—Environmental History"Zoo Renewal makes an original, important contribution to the scholarship of zoo histories and human-animal studies as well as of the social and cultural history of urbanism, environmentalism and identity politics in twentieth-century American. It is highly recommended."—Humanimalia"Zoo Renewal offers a provocative, original reading of midcentury attempts to reform American zoos, reminding us that how we view animals inevitably reflects and reinforces how we view humans."—Journal of American History"Zoo Renewal is an important contribution to the growing critical historiography of zoos and, more broadly, post–World War II leisure spaces in the United States and around the globe. Uddin's book adds a new dimension to what has become the standard historical understanding of zoos' relationship to race and empire."—Buildings & LandscapesTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: On Feeling Bad at the Zoo 1. Shame and the Naked Cage2. Zoo Slum Clearance in Washington, D.C.3. Mohini’s Bodies4. White Open Spaces in San Diego County5. Looking EndangeredAfterword: Good Feelings in SeattleNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewI don’t have Deaf Gain, but I am one of the fortunate hearing people who has been able to witness it, so I know something of what I’m missing. I believe that I am made richer by the simple fact of having witnessed the merit present in what most people still presume to be a deficit. This book elucidates that argument elegantly.—Andrew Solomon, from the Foreword"Bauman and Murray. . . remind us that deafness is a part of, not apart from humanity."—Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education"The overwhelming approach is positive, optimistic, and even heroic. The concept of Deaf Gain turns on its head the usual idea that deafness should be defined through narratives of suffering and isolation. . . an excellent addition to the understanding of deafness and to the promotion of Deaf culture."—Medical HumanitiesTable of ContentsContentsForeword: Deaf LossAndrew SolomonDeaf Gain: An IntroductionH-Dirksen L. Bauman and Joseph J. MurrayEditors’ Note on TerminologyI. Philosophical Gains 1. Armchairs and Stares: On the Privation of Deafness Teresa Blankmeyer Burke2. Identifying the “Able” in a Vari-able World: Two LessonsJames Tabery3. The Case for Deaf Legal Theory through the Lens of Deaf GainAlison Bryan and Steve EmeryII. Language Gains4. Three Revolutions: Language, Culture, and BiologyLaura-Ann Petitto5. Deaf Gain in Evolutionary PerspectiveDavid Armstrong6. Deaf Gains in the Study of Bilingualism and Bilingual EducationOfelia García and Debra Cole7. What We Learned from Sign Languages When We Stopped Having to Defend ThemCindee CaltonIII. Language Gains in Action8. Advantages of Learning a Signed LanguagePeter C. Hauser and Geo Kartheiser9. Baby Sign as Deaf GainKristin Snoddon10. Manual Signs and Gestures of the Inuit of Baffin Island: Observations during the Three Voyages Led by Martin FrobisherClara Sherley-Appel and John D. Bonvillian11. Bulwer’s Speaking Hands: Deafness and RhetoricJennifer NelsonIV. Sensory Gains12. Seeing the World through Deaf EyesMatthew Dye13. A Magic Touch: Deaf Gain and the Benefits of Tactile SensationDonna Jo Napoli14. Senses and Culture: Exploring Sensory OrientationsBenjamin Bahan15. The Deaf Gain of Wladislav Zeitlin, Jewish Scientist and InventorMark Zaurov16. The Hidden Gain: A New Lens of Research with d/Deaf Children and AdultsKatherine D. Rogers and Hilary SutherlandV. Social Gains17. Deaf Gain and Shared Signing CommunitiesAnnelies Kusters18. Gainful Employment: Historical Examples from Akron, OhioKati Morton19. Effective Deaf Action in the Deaf Community in UruguayElizabeth M. Lockwood20. Deaf Gains in Brazil: Linguistic Policies and Network EstablishmentRonice Müller de Quadros, Karin Strobel, and Mara Lúcia Masutti21. Deaf Gain: Beyond Deaf CultureIrene W. Leigh, Donna A. Morere, and Caroline Kobek PezzarossiVI. Creative Gains22. DeafSpace: An Architecture toward a More Livable and Sustainable WorldHansel Bauman23. Co-Design from Divergent ThinkingAntti Raike, Suvi Pylvänen, and Päivi Rainò24. The Hearing Line: How Literature Gains from Deaf PeopleChristopher Krentz25. Deaf Music: Embodying Language and RhythmSummer Loeffler26. Deaf Gain and Creativity in Signed LiteratureRachel Sutton-Spence27. Deaf Gain and the Creative Arts: Interviews with Deaf ArtistsJennifer Grinder WitteborgAfterword. Implications of Deaf Gain: Linguistic Human Rights for Deaf CitizensTove Skutnabb-KangasAcknowledgmentsContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisMakes a contribution to the study of race dominance. Approaching whiteness as a plural rather than singular concept, this book includes essays that describe, for instance, African American, Chicana, European American, and British experiences of whiteness.Trade Review“An excellent sampling of scholarship in an emerging field. The multiracial dynamics of the formation of whiteness are well represented. And a sure mark of the maturity of the collection is the recurring, careful attention to the dynamics of race and gender.”—David Roediger, University of Missouri“This collection will be a substantial contribution to a current and growing body of materials investigating whiteness. As Frankenberg and the contributors know, recent work—even work that brackets whiteness in terms of class—has made little effort to specify the stunning range of particularity in the ways whiteness is experienced. This collection begins such a specification.”—Dana D. Nelson, University of KentuckyTable of ContentsIntroduction: Local Whiteness, Localizing Whiteness / Ruth Frankenberg 1 Fictions of Whiteness: Speaking the Names of Whiteness in U.S. Literature / Rebecca Aanerud 35 Rereading Ghandi / T. Muraleedharan 60 Theorizing White Consciousness for a Post-Empire World: Barthes, Fanon, and the Rhetoric of Love / Chéla Sandoval 86 On the Social Construction of Whiteness within Selected Chicana/o Discourse / Angie Chabram-Dernersesian 107 Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination / bell hooks 165 Locating White Detroit / John Hartigan Jr. 180 Brown-Skinned White Girls: Class, Culture, and the Construction of White Identity in Suburban Communities / France Winddance Twine 214 Laboring under Whiteness / Phil Cohen 244 Island Racism: Gender, Place, and White Power / Vron Ware 283 Minstrel Shows, Affirmative Action Talk, and Angry White Men: Marking Racial Otherness in the 1990s / David Wellman 311 Bibliography 333 Contributors 349 Index 351

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Book SynopsisAn ethnography of Wall Street, investment bankers and the cultural logics of finance.Trade Review“Karen Ho has picked an excellent time to publish her fascinating new study . . . of Wall Street banks. . . . As field-sites go, Wall Street is not classic anthropological territory: ethnographers typically work in remote, third-world societies. . . . Ho nevertheless embarked on her study in classic anthropological manner: by blending into the background, listening intently, in a non-judgmental way – and then trying to join up the dots to get a ‘holistic’ picture of how the culture works. That patient ethnographic analysis has produced a fascinating portrait that will be refreshingly novel to most bankers.” -- Gillian Tett * Financial Times *“Ho's study shows the intense competitiveness that is instilled in these primarily Ivy League recruits even before they are finished with their Bachelor's degrees. And she examines the myth that stockowners and companies are best served by maximizing shareholder profits. If anything, this book gives faces to the people who work in that abstract entity called Wall Street that seems to affect our world so much of late. I highly recommend it, especially if you have no idea how the world of high finance operates.” -- James Franco * Huffington Post *“After several decades when anthropologists at last overcame their inhibitions concerning the study of money, Karen Ho’s book . . . seems to mark a coming of age for the contemporary discipline. . . . The intelligence of its author shines through Liquidated. . . . I found it rewarding to read and reflect on, a landmark in the burgeoning anthropology of money.” -- Keith Hart * American Ethnologist *“The book’s great strength lies in Ho’s careful observation of the means by which people succeed or fail on Wall Street, as she punctures many of the assumptions about how markets work.” -- Keir Martin * TLS *“[A] unique portrait of the industry that asks pertinent questions about constant change, job insecurity, and the banker’s identity. . . . Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street asks many questions that those who work in the investment field should ask themselves. . . . Although many in the financial industry will not agree with Ho’s hypotheses and conclusions, they will be challenged by the questions she raises and enthralled by the body of fieldwork she presents.” -- Janet J. Mangano * Financial Analysts Journal *“Ho’s refreshing ethnography of the daily lives of Wall Street investment bankers . . . outlines a web of practices, beliefs and structures that may be vital to understanding what keeps the market system in place despite built-in instabilities.” * Publishers Weekly *“Karen Ho is my hero. . . . Her ethnography of investment bankers in the late 1990s, Liquidated, depicts the bravado, callousness, and contradictions that are the hallmarks of investment banking culture.” -- Mitchel Y. Abolafia * American Journal of Sociology *“Liquidated is an interesting description of many of the practices and orientations that exist in large investment banks, one that confirms what the reader may suspect: that these institutions are forcing-grounds for the sort of hubris and invulnerability that goes with the phrase ‘Masters of the Universe’, the incomprehensible money that sales staff receive, and the idea that they are ‘doing God’s work’. It also, however, indicates the reverse of the strength of the social studies of finance. Liquidated may help explain why those in investment banks think and operate in the ways that they do.” -- James G. Carrier * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *“Liquidated is a must-read book for anyone interested in how legions of recruits from Ivy League colleges come to espouse and enact the twisted bundle of class interests and market ideology that constitutes neoliberal capitalism.” -- Kathryn Dudley * American Studies *“The book contains many wonderful insights, and is a veritable mine of quotations from Wall Street participants. . . . The book is, moreover, extremely well written throughout . . . . [A]n informed and informative text.” -- Brett Christophers * Environment and Planning A *“Although written for a mostly academic audience, the book becomes easily digestible because of the summaries Ho adds in each section. She connects well the main theme throughout any areas of the book. Ho’s views should not be considered ‘anti-Wall Street’ but viewed as an analysis of Wall Street’s effect on the American community and the financial markets. This book should be read by Wall Street investment bankers and corporate managers to better understand the social values and responsibilities of corporations and the role that they play in the American community.” -- Linda Kee-Koa * International Examiner *“[E]ngaging and hard to put down. . . Karen Ho’s book is a must-read for anyone contemplating joining one of the major global banks. . . . Actually, even faculty of our elite schools are starting to question why so many of their graduates end up in finance. Karen Ho’s book should be required reading for students and faculty at these schools.” -- Ben Lorica * Quant Network *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Anthropology Goes to Wall Street 1 1. Biographies of Hegemony: The Culture of Smartness and the Recruitment and Construction of Investment Bankers 39 2. Wall Street's Orientation: Exploitation, Empowerment, and the Politics of Hard Work 73 3. Wall Street Historiographies and the Shareholder Value Revolution 122 4. The Neoclassical Roots and Origin Narratives of Shareholder Value 169 5. Downsizers Downsized: Job Insecurity and Investment Banking Corporate Culture 213 6. Liquid Lives, Compensation Schemes, and the Making of (Unsustainable) Financial Markets 249 7. Leveraging Dominance and Crises through the Global 294 Notes 325 References 353 Index 369

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Book SynopsisThis lively compilation of testimonies, journalism, scholarship, political tracts, literature, and illustrations conveys Paraguay's rich history and cultural heritage, as well as its struggles against underdevelopment, foreign intervention, poverty, inequality, and authoritarianism.Trade Review“Peter Lambert and Andrew Nickson have written a wonderfully engaging and useful text that addresses Paraguay’s fascinating and complicated history, replete with unique linguistics and national identity, and rich cultural heritage. . . . The lack of information about Paraguay is palpable.Nonetheless, Lambert and Nickson have corrected this oversight with a text that is bound to find an audience with undergraduate students, future Peace Corps volunteers . . . travelers, missionaries, businesspersons, and diplomats.” -- Bridget María Chesterton * A Contracorriente *“At its best, The Paraguay Reader puts oppositional texts next to each other, not resolving the cacophony of voices but instead allowing the tensions to stand. As such, the compilation serves as an introductory overview for historians, regionalists, and social scientists; but, as the first English-language text of its kind, The Paraguay Reader will also be an important text for Paraguayanists.” -- Christine Folch * Hispanic American Historical Review *“Overall, the editors offer an indispensable guide to an important topic. A must-have for any academic library. Summing up: Essential.” -- K.A. Tyvela * Choice *“This excellent collection of literary artefacts and historical texts and reportage lifts this veil of mystery and shines a light on the country’s hidden hinterland, providing the reader with genuinely interesting insights into a country and society that is poorly understood in South America itself, let alone in the rest of the world.” -- Gavin O’Toole * Latin American Review of Books *“Many of the accounts are being made accessible in English for the first time and thus provide an invaluable resource on the subjects treated, one that has no parallel in the current literature. All of the accounts are preceded by introductions that prepare the reader for the historical significance of the piece.” -- Leonard Rinchiuso * Journal of Latin American Geography *“The Paraguay Reader is a much needed and therefore welcome contribution to the practically nonexistent field of Paraguayan studies. Anyone who wishes to better understand Paraguay will find this book indispensable.” -- Marcelino Viera-Ramos * The Latin Americanist *“The Paraguay Reader is an excellent compilation of literature, folklore, anecdote, reportage and academic research. It illustrates the indomitable capacity of the Paraguayan people.” -- Ed Hart * Sounds and Colours *"The editors do an admirable job of compiling primary sources and analytical essays on the history, politics, and culture of this small, landlocked, poorly understood nation. Undoubtedly the most comprehensive and accessible introduction to Paraguay available in English, The Paraguay Reader both explains and complicates the country’s fabled uniqueness." -- Christine Mathias * Ethnohistory *“For readers seeking an introduction to Paraguayan history and instructors interested in incorporating a tremendous range of source materials in the classroom, The Paraguay Reader is an excellent resource.” -- Caroline E. Schuster * Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 I. The Birth of Paraguay 11 II. The Nationalist Experiment 53 III. A Slow Recovery 129 IV. From the Chaco War to the Civil War 193 V. Dictatorship and Resistance 235 VI. A Transition in Search of Democracy 321 VII. What Does It Mean to Be Paraguayan? 383 Epilogue: The Impeachment of President Fernando Lugo 451 Suggestions for Further Reading 457 Acknowledgment of Copyright and Sources 463 Index 471

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Book SynopsisDavid A. McDonald presents an ethnographic study of the role of music and musicians in the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.Trade Review"David A. McDonald has written a singular, ambitious, and much-needed book that explores a very important dimension of the Palestinian-Israeli question. He provides an invaluable historical overview of Palestinian resistance music since the 1930s and an ethnography of music and musicians during the second intifada and its aftermath."—Ted Swedenburg, coeditor of Palestine, Israel, and the Politics of Popular Culture"This book is highly original, well researched, and extremely engaging. Through strong social analysis and sharp historical insights, David A. McDonald connects music, poetry, performance, and political life among the Palestinian people."—Virginia Danielson, author of The Voice of Egypt: Umm Kulthūm, Arabic Song, and Egyptian Society in the Twentieth Century“The volume, and the fieldwork from which it is written… do much to demystify Palestinian politics and political expression for western readers; for this reason among the other strengths of the work,My Voice is My Weapon will prove a valuable tool for students, educators and the general public in years to come.” -- Rayya S. El Zein * Ethnomusicology Forum *“There are at least two and possibly three different books co-existing within David McDonald’s comprehensive and impressively researched study of music in Palestinian society and its role in shaping national identity within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict . . . a compelling and monumental study.” * Songlines *"By including Palestinians living in the Palestinian Territories, in Israel, and in exile as well as a plethora of musical genres, McDonald shows the diversity of history, experience, and meaning of Palestinian identity." -- KD * Middle East Journal *“David A. McDonald’s study of Palestinian music is . . . an acute, nuanced account of Palestinian history and identity as it is sung, danced, and performed by Palestinians. What emerges is neither a simple counter-narrative nor an essentialized, sugarcoated tale of Palestinian resistance and resilience. Instead, it is an incisive and thoughtful examination of a multilayered narrative as it has emerged over time and been variously interpreted and experienced by Palestinians in Israel, the occupied territories, and the diaspora. McDonald’s work is significant if simply for the fact that it is the first English-language monograph to substantially engage with Palestinian music as it relates to the shaping and formation of Palestinian identity.” -- Sylvia A. Alajaji * Journal of Popular Music Studies *"In My Voice Is My Weapon David A. McDonald rigorously examines Palestinian exile, occupation, and dispossession through an ethnographic history of Palestinian protest music.... Through rigorous analysis of musical repertoire, performers, and historical context, McDonald clearly illustrates the multiplicity of Palestinian resistance strategies and competing visions of nationhood, thus encouraging scholars to reconsider the making of modern national consciousness.... This study of Palestinian protest music richly reveals how repertoire binds together disparate experiences of Palestinian national identity into a musical landscape." -- Shayna M. Silverstein * PoLAR *"My Voice is My Weapon is remarkable, well researched and presented.... Although those involved with Middle Eastern studies will no doubt find this book to be of significance, due to its musical subject matter and ethnohistorical approach My Voice is My Weapon is a must-read for any cultural anthropologists, folklorists, and especially ethnomusicologists with an interest in the topic." -- Lisa Urkevich * Notes *“Literature on Palestinian music is scarce. This makes David McDonald’s My Voice Is My Weapon, which includes a substantial amount of overviews and details information on Palestinian music, a much-needed addition to the current research. What is more, the book is valuable as a piece of well-done research.” -- Stig-Magnus Thorsén * World of Music *"...this is a fascinating, well- researched and compelling study that will find appreciative audiences among students and scholars of the Middle East, popular culture, and music. It should be required reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on popular culture, ethnomusicology, and Middle Eastern Studies, not only for its rich historical and ethnographic material and excellent online archive, but for its methodological insights and conclusions." -- Jonathan Shannon * Ethnomusicology *Table of ContentsIllustrations viii Note on Transliterations xi Note on Accessing Performance Videos xiii Acknowledgments xvii Introduction 1 1. Nationalism, Belonging, and the Performativity of Resistance 17 2. Poets, Singers, and Songs: Voices in the Resistance Movement (1917–1967) 34 3. Al-Naksa and the Emergence of Political Song (1967–1987) 78 4. The First Intifada and the Generation of Stones (1987–2000) 116 5. Revivals and New Arrivals: The al-Aqsa Intifada (2000–2010) 144 6. "My Songs Can Reach the Whole Nation": Baladna and Protest Song in Jordan 163 7. Imprisonment and Exile: Negotiating Power and Resistance in Palestinian Protest Song 199 8. New Directions and New Modalities: Palestinian Hip-Hop in Israel 231 9. "Carrying Words Like Weapons": DAM Brings Hip-Hop to the West Bank 262 Epilogue 283 Appendix: Song Lyric Transliterations 287 Notes 305 Bibliography 321 Index 329

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Book SynopsisTells the stories of Greek Leftists as paradigmatic figures of abjection, given that between 1929 and 1974 tens of thousands of Greek dissidents were detained and tortured in prisons, places of exile, and concentration and rehabilitation camps. This volume presents the history of how Greek Left was constituted by Greek state as a zone of danger.Trade Review" ... An anthropological approach to the G reek state's response to the Greek left." -H-War List-serv Dangerous Citizens is several brilliant books at once: meditation, memoir, ethnography, an intricate political history of Modern Greece. But it has a single subject: what happens to persons who are defined by others as dangerous and yet feel themselves to be powerless, banished to a social margin. Neni Parourgia's goal is to reconstruct and understand the daily (and nightly) lives of these persons, and to orchestrate their eloquent but all too rarely heard cries. -- -Michael Wood Princeton University "Dangerous Citizens is a powerful and unforgettable book. It is at once a horrific history of nearly a century of state violence in Greece that few people may be aware of; a profound meditation on the conditions of possibility for both the idea and the reality of concentration camps; and a text that intertwines ethnography, history, and personal memoir to very powerful effect." -- -Sherry Ortner University of California, Los Angeles "Intimate, fascinating, and inventively analytic ... A worthy and brilliant successor to Panourgia's much acclaimed Fragments of Death, Fables of Identity: An Athenian Anthropography." -- -George E. Marcus University of California, Irvine "Columbia anthropology professor Neni Panourgia's new project takes the concept of an 'interactive conversation' a step further. The recent online release of Dangerous Citiznes: The Greek Left and the Terror of the State by far exceeds the publication of the book by the same name in being revolutionary. Instead of being your average Kindle e-book or online PDF, the new Website is a freely accessed interactive, multimedia text that exemplifies an exciting but problematic pathway for published scholarship." -The Eye "A riveting ethnographic account of the experiences of dissidents of the Greek state in the course of the twentieth century. The insights of Panourgia's new book promise to change the way in which anthropologists read and engage with social theory. This book should become compulsory reading for any course in anthropology and European studies." -- -Yael Navaro-Yashin Cambridge University "Dangerous Citizens assembles paradoxical evidence of leftist formations in Greece, long waged and suppressed. A multi-scaled history of political suffering, this fascinating text is plain-spoken yet gnomic, with adroit comparative asides to wrap non-specialist readers in drastic episodes artfully unfurled. Neni Panourgia resists sanitized geopolitical generalization; she lodges patently nationalist loci (e.g., war-waging) in radically skewed intimacies of experience. Revisiting fabled scenes of violent encounter and more-than-traumatic memory, this gifted critic offers uncompromising ethnography of manifest dissidence, everyday resilience, and specificities of terror (sometimes unwitting) endlessly difficult to fathom." -- -James A. Boon Princeton University "Dangerous Citizens is a simultaneous indictment of the "liberal" nation-state's blithe pretensions and willful self-ignorance; of the political and discursive relegation of modern Greek history to the historical margins of the colonial "civilizing mission"; and of inhuman simplifications of the past everywhere. In an evocation of Oedipus that owes nothing to crass invocations of continuity with the ancient world, Neni Panourgia writes with the ethical passion of a partial witness who nonetheless claims no special privilege other than that of the common humanity denied by the state to those it repeatedly configures as its enemies. In posing this appealingly controversial challenge to the liberal self-imagination, moreover, Panourgia -- who has honed her distinctive writing idiom into a compelling mix of careful scholarship and stylistic adventurism -- calls anthropology itself to account." -- -Michael Herzfeld Harvard University "A most challenging reflection about the presence of the past in society, Panourgia's new book relates the singular story of the Greek Left, bringing out its multiple voices and often conflicting narratives. In this ethnography, based both on the author's past experiences and on extensive fieldwork in Athens, the narrator/anthropologist explores the tension between individual voices and collective representations and boldly confirms -again- that the writing of anthropology can always be an innovative experience." -- -Maria Couroucli Research Fellow CNRS, University of Paris-Ouest-Nanterre

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Book SynopsisINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolutionfrom the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequalityand revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlikeeither free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or by taming our baser instincts. In their major New York Times bestseller, The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow fundamentally challenge these assumptions and recast our understanding of human history. We will never again see the past in the same way.Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, Graeber and Wengrow reveal how history becomes a far more int

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Book SynopsisAn original history of Russia''s thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin''s politics and rekindled the Cold War.Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has reshaped history. In the decades after the collapse of Soviet communism, the West convinced itself that liberal democracy would henceforth be the dominant, ultimately unique, system of governance - a hubris that shaped how the West would treat Russia for the next two decades. But history wasn't over. Putin is a paradox. In the early years of his presidency, he appeared to commit himself to friendship with the West, suggesting that Russia could join the European Union or even NATO. He said he supported free-market democracy and civil rights. But the Putin of those years is unrecognisable today. The Putin of the 2020s is an autocratic nationalist, dedicated to repression at home and anti-Western militarism abroad. So, what happened? Was he lying when he proclaimed his support Trade ReviewClear, lively, and not afraid to be controversial: a stimulating anatomisation of Russia’s poisonous relationship with the West, Ukraine, and its own dark past. -- Anna Reid, author of Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine and A Dirty Little WarThis is a very important account of the build-up to Russia’s invasions of Ukrainian territory. Most books and articles on the Russia-Ukraine war are very one-sided; the great merit of this book is that the Sixsmiths take a long historical perspective and enable the reader to appreciate the aspirations of both sides. The authors focus on the defects of Western societies as well as on those of Russia. This is a study that needs to be taken into account when we try to understand the lessons of the war. -- Geoffrey Hosking, Emeritus Professor of Russian History, University College LondonA fascinating and highly readable account of the background to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, informed by Martin Sixsmith’s long involvement with the region since his days as a BBC correspondent covering the last days of the Soviet Union. -- Peter Conradi, author of Who Lost Russia? From the Collapse of the USSR to Putin's War on UkraineA tremendous study of how Putin has tragically manipulated national myths for personal gain and revanchist patriotism. -- Starred Review, Kirkus Review

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Book SynopsisOver the course of more than a decade, the Haida Nation triumphantly returned home all known Haida ancestral remains from North American museums. The Force of Family is an ethnography of those efforts to repatriate ancestral remains from museums around the world.Trade Review'This work is beautifully crafted contribution to repatriation and critical heritage studies... Highly recommended.' -- K.S. Fine-Dare Choice Magazine vol 52:04:2014Table of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Tables Acknowledgements A Note on Orthography Abbreviations Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Departures and Arrivals Chapter 3: Family, Morality and Haida Repatriation Chapter 4: The Structural Qualities and Cultural Values of Haida Kinship Chapter 5: The Values of Yahgudang: The Relationships Between Self and Others Chapter 6: The Structuring of Kinship and History Chapter 7: The Place of Repatriation within Collective Memory Chapter 8: Conclusions and Beginnings Notes Project Interviews References

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Book SynopsisNaamiwan's Drum follows the story of a famous Ojibwe medicine man, his gifted grandson, and remarkable water drum. The book contains a powerful Anishinaabe interpretive perspective on repatriation and on anthropology itself.Trade Review‘What this book does excellently is to uncover in subtle ways how objects are actors in the drama of repatriation whether one takes First Nations perspective or not.’ -- Max Carocci * Transmotion Journal vol 4:01:2018 *‘This work will no doubt become a standard by which repatriation and perhaps even cultural and community studies are judged.’ -- Patricia Harms * The Canadian Journal of Native Studies vol 37:02:2017 *Table of ContentsMAPS AND PHOTOGRAPHS COLOUR PLATES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Chapter 2 OMISHOOSH: Visit to the Museum Chapter 3 ANIMACY: Linguistic Considerations Chapter 4 DEWE'IGAN: Repatriation Chapter 5 PERSONHOOD: Wiikan and Artefact Chapter 6 THREE FIRES MIDEWIWIN LODGE: Ojibwe Advocacy and Revitalization Chapter 7 REPATRIATION: Cultural Rights and the Construction of Meaning Chapter 8 NELSON OWEN: Mitigwakik Homecoming Chapter 9 AGENCY AND ARTEFACTS: New Theoretical Approaches Chapter 10 REPATRIATING AGENCY: An Agency Analysis of Repatriation APPENDIX A: TIME LINE APPENDIX B: OJIBWE LANGUAGE NOTES APPENDIX C: OJIBWE GLOSSARY REFERENCES CITED END NOTES

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Book SynopsisA rich, long-term ethnography of women seafood traders in Mexico.Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Amber Sunsets and Pink Gold Chapter 1. Contested Grounds: Women Shrimp Traders and Street Economies Chapter 2. On Becoming Changueras: Gendered Livelihoods and Contested Identities Chapter 3. The Street of the Women Shrimp Traders: Learning the Tricks of the Trade in Space and Place Chapter 4. Here We Are Like a Family: The Complexity of Social Relations Chapter 5. The Culture and Economy of Pink Gold: The Meanings, Processes, and Values of Shrimp Chapter 6. Sometimes We Work Just to Pay Our Debts: Informal Credit and Savings Systems Chapter 7. From Outcasts to Icons: Women Shrimp Traders and Expressive Culture Conclusion: Feminist Political Ecology, Ethnography, and Uncovering Lived Realities References Index

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Book SynopsisFrom U.S.-Mexico border walls to Flint''s poisoned pipes, there is a new urgency to the politics of infrastructure. Roads, electricity lines, water pipes, and oil installations promise to distribute the resources necessary for everyday life. Yetan attention to their ongoing processes also reveals how infrastructures are made with fragile and often violent relations among people, materials, and institutions. While infrastructures promise modernity and development, their breakdowns and absences reveal the underbelly of progress, liberal equality, and economic growth. This tension, between aspiration and failure, makes infrastructure a productive location for social theory. Contributing to the everyday lives of infrastructure across four continents, some of the leading anthropologists of infrastructure demonstrate in The Promise of Infrastructure how these more-than-human assemblages made over more-than-human lifetimes offer new opportunities to theorize time, politics, and prTrade Review"The Promise of Infrastructure offers a provocative reflection on the current academic, social, and political moment that we find ourselves in. . . . While The Promise of Infrastructure as a whole offers a surprisingly comprehensive condemnation of the 'radically human-centered thinking' that has produced the Anthropocene challenge that we now face, it also suggests the tools we will need to map out possible futures. Appropriately, these are not prescriptions promising a better future. Rather they are openings for possibility, for action, and for wonder." -- Tim Oakes * Technology and Culture *"The volume offers a highly valuable contribution to the study of human/non-human relations. Taking up Brian Larkin’s call against a premature separation of the material from the discursive, the editors argue that infrastructural matter becomes political only in relation to human ideologies, aesthetics or histories." -- Laura Kemmer * International Journal of Urban and Regional Research *"The Promise of Infrastructure is a timely and compelling account of the myriad ways in which infrastructures can be theorized and the limits and potentials of the same." -- Siddharth Menon * AAG Review of Books *"The Promise of Infrastructure is a stellar collection of essays by anthropologists and social scientists who explore roads, buildings, bridges, water meters, pipelines, power stations, and other structures which we encounter on a daily basis but whose contribution to the production of difference we frequently overlook." -- Natalia Kovalyova * Anthropology Book Forum *"This book presents a combination of insightful theorisations and an engaging ethnography." -- Sudha Vasan * Economic & Political Weekly *"The Promise of Infrastructure is essential reading for scholars and students who wish to more fully understand the ethical and social role of the 'Ideal Infrastructure,' its history, its criticisms and its (uncertain) future destiny." -- Marco Spada * Environment and History *“The edited collection by Anand, Gupta, and Appel highlights infrastructures as a promising site for ethnographic research.... [It] reveal[s] the potential of infrastructural ethnography to make visible power inequalities and exclusionary practices and expose infrastructures as powerful sites for redefining governance and belonging.” -- Daivi Rodima-Taylor * American Anthropologist *“The Promise of Infrastructure teaches the reader how large state-run infrastructures can possibly induce and solidify regimes in pursuing their political promises. . . . Insights stemming out of The Promise of Infrastructure—especially the concept of ‘ruination’—enable researchers to acquire a ‘fuller’ account of the lifecycle of an infrastructure.” -- Alex Christian * Journal of Cultural Economy *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction: Temporality, Politics, and the Promise of Infrastructure / Hannah Appel, Nikhil Anand, and Akhil Gupta 1 Part I. Time 1. Infrastructural Time / Hannah Appel 41 2. The Future in Ruins: Thoughts on the Temporality of Infrastructure / Akhil Gupta 62 3. Infrastructures in and out of Time: The Promise of Roads in Contemporary Peru / Penny Harvey 80 4. The Current Never Stops: Intimacies of Energy Infrastructure in Vietnam / Christina Schwenkel 102 Part II. Politics 5. Infrastructure, Apartheid Technopolitics, and Temporalities of "Transition" / Antina von Schnitzler 133 6. A Public Matter: Water, Hydraulics, Biopolitics / Nikhil Anand 155 Part III. 7. Promising Forms: The Political Aesthetics of Infrastructure / Brian Larkin 175 8. Sustainable Knowledge Infrastructures / Geoffrey C. Bowker 203 9. Infrastructure, Potential Energy, Revolution / Dominic Boyer 223 Contributors 245 Index 249

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Book SynopsisIn a time of intense uncertainty, social strife, and ecological upheaval, what does it take to envision the world as it yet may be? The field of anthropology, Anand Pandian argues, has resources essential for this critical and imaginative task. Anthropology is no stranger to injustice and exploitation. Still, its methods can reveal unseen dimensions of the world at hand and radical experience as the seed of a humanity yet to come. A Possible Anthropology is an ethnography of anthropologists at work: canonical figures like Bronislaw Malinowski and Claude Lévi-Strauss, ethnographic storytellers like Zora Neale Hurston and Ursula K. Le Guin, contemporary scholars like Jane Guyer and Michael Jackson, and artists and indigenous activists inspired by the field. In their company, Pandian explores the moral and political horizons of anthropological inquiry, the creative and transformative potential of an experimental practice.Trade Review“Incorporating the current movements beyond 'writing culture' of twentieth-century anthropology, Anand Pandian reinstantiates the poetics of an ethnographic method that anticipates futures. In the midst of a surge of multimodal experimentation, Pandian stunningly reinvests in the narrative character of ethnography.” -- George E. Marcus, coauthor of * Ethnography by Design: Scenographic Experiments in Fieldwork *“Offering the daring gambit of revisiting anthropology's past to make it new, and critically meditating, too, upon the field's latest theoretical moves, Anand Pandian's captivating book is a stirring brief for ethnography as a method for exploring that which is and may yet be possible.” -- Stefan Helmreich, author of * Sounding the Limits of Life: Essays in the Anthropology of Biology and Beyond *"This is a book that practicing anthropologists and students of anthropology must both read." -- Shweta Krishnan * Anthropology Book Forum *"A Possible Anthropology is bold, caring, and creative in trying to confront these issues head on, in trying to imagine some other kind of world." -- Andrés Romero * Cultural Anthropology *"With a focus on figures in the discipline’s past and current practices, A Possible Anthropology contributes to debates about the future of anthropological inquiry (and the ethnographic method) in academia and the wider world. It is an evocative and inspired book, clearly written and rigorous." -- Adam Fleischmann * Anthropological Quarterly *"This book is an inspirational joy and a read I recommend." -- Robert Meckin * Qualitative Research *“Pandian has offered a strong work. . . . A Possible Anthropology is indeed a hopeful book for uneasy times, that encourages us to dive deeper into an anthropological way of engaging with the world.” -- Julia Nina Baumann * Anthropos *Table of ContentsIntroduction. An Ethnographer among the Anthropologists 1 1. The World at Hand: Between Scientific and Literary Inquiry 15 2. A Method of Experience: Reading, Writing, Teaching, Fieldwork 44 3. For the Humanity Yet to Come: Politics, Art, Fiction, Ethnography 77 Coda. The Anthropologist as Critic 110 Acknowledgments 123 Notes 127 Bibliography 141 Index 155

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Book SynopsisJoanne Rappaport examines the work of a group of Colombian social scientists led by Orlando Fals Borda, who in the 1970s developed a model of participatory action research in which they embedded themselves into local communities to use their research in the service of social and political organizing.Trade Review“All of us who attempt to practice politically engaged research have stood on the shoulders of Orlando Fals Borda. With the publication of Cowards Don't Make History we finally understand why: Joanne Rappaport's meticulous research reveals the profoundly creative and original alchemy that resulted when virtuoso academics collaborated with equally talented grassroots intellectuals in shared political struggles and knowledge production. Rappaport enables us to honor Fals Borda's life work, not as infallible model or method, but as stern inspiration for the unfinished tasks of twenty-first-century social science, still in search of the courage fully to confront the somber urgencies of the present.” -- Charles R. Hale, coeditor of * Otros Saberes: Collaborative Research on Indigenous and Afro-Descendant Cultural Politics *“The essential, definitive reference for this crucial stage of Orlando Fals Borda's thought, politics, and collaborative research, Cowards Don't Make History reaches beyond Latin America to all who are concerned with the social construction of knowledge and the politics and sociology of knowledge. This stimulating, innovative, and rigorous book is a model for exploratory, interactive research.” -- Catherine C. LeGrand, coeditor of * Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of US-Latin American Relations *"This book is for the specialist but will find wide appeal across the social sciences; sociologists will read the book, as well as anthropologists, historians and folks interested in graphic novels/comics as sources.… Rappaport's work forces researchers and scholars outside of Colombia to think more critically about scholarship and activism." -- Michael J. LaRosa * ReVista *"Cowards Don’t Make History is an informative read for anthropologists of education. Engaged and activist researchers will appreciate the archival examination of a seminal researcher operating in a contentious political context. . . . Critical teacher educators will welcome the book as a tool for deconstructing the ethical, cultural, and political nature of education. Finally, researchers who are curious about the politics of socially constructed knowledge will find this book both compelling and thought provoking." -- Kyle Kopsick * Anthropology and Education Quarterly *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix Cast of Characters xi Preface xvii Introduction 1 1. The Fundación del Caribe in Córdoba 29 2. Archives and Repertoires 46 3. Participation 66 4. Critical Recovery 94 5. Systematic Devolution 130 6. Engagement and Reflection 169 7. Fals Borda's Legacy 197 Notes 233 References Cited 243 Index

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Book SynopsisIn The Surrounds renowned urbanist AbdouMaliq Simone offers a new theorization of the interface of the urban and the political. Working at the intersection of Black studies, urban theory, and decolonial and Islamic thought, Simone centers the surrounds—those urban spaces beyond control and capture that exist as a locus of rebellion and invention. He shows that even in clearly defined city environments, whether industrial, carceral, administrative, or domestic, residents use spaces for purposes they were not designed for: schools become housing, markets turn into classrooms, tax offices transform into repair shops. The surrounds, Simone contends, are where nothing fits according to design. They are where forgotten and marginalized populations invent new relations and ways of living and being, continuously reshaping what individuals and collectives can do. Focusing less on what new worlds may come to be and more on what people are creating now, Simone shows how the suTable of ContentsPreface vii Acknowledgments xi Introduction. Exposing the Surrounds as Urban Infrastructure 1 1. Without Capture: From Extinction to Abolition 21 2. Forgetting Being Forgotten 61 3. Rebellion without Redemption 100 Coda. Extensions beyond Value 134 References 139 Index 153

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Book SynopsisIn Ruderal City Bettina Stoetzer traces relationships among people, plants, and animals in contemporary Berlin as they make their lives in the ruins of European nationalism and capitalism. She develops the notion of the ruderal—originally an ecological designation for the unruly life that inhabits inhospitable environments such as rubble, roadsides, train tracks, and sidewalk cracks—to theorize Berlin as a “ruderal city.” Stoetzer explores sites in and around Berlin that have figured in German national imaginaries—gardens, forests, parks, and rubble fields—to show how racial, class, and gender inequalities shape contestations over today’s uses and knowledges of urban nature. Drawing on fieldwork with gardeners, botanists, migrant workers, refugees, public officials, and nature enthusiasts while charting human and more-than-human worlds, Stoetzer offers a wide-ranging ethnographic portrait of Berlin’s postwar ecologies that reveals Table of ContentsPreface: Forest Tracks vii Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 Rubble 1. Botanical Encounters 35 Gardens 2. Gardening the Ruins 67 Parks 3. Provisioning against Austerity 103 4. Barbecue Area 138 Forests 5. Living in the Unheimlich 173 6. Stories of the “Wild East” 205 Epilogue: Seeding Livable Futures 239 Notes 245 References 283 Index 319

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Book SynopsisIn The Gumilev Mystique, Mark Bassin investigates the complex structure of Lev Gumilev's theories, revealing how they reflected and helped shape a variety of academic as well as political and social discourses in the USSR, and he traces how his authority has grown yet greater across the former Soviet Union.Trade Review"The Gumilev Mystique is by far the most authoritative account in English on the ideas and life of a scholar whose star is still rising in Eurasia. In this widely researched book, Mark Bassin explains the popularity of Gumilev and explores the process by which a somewhat repressed figure in the Stalinist period became a guru of the post-Soviet period. The book reads extremely well and has a quality to it that makes the reader want to know what will come next from this outlandish figure whose real life is stranger than fiction." -- David G. Anderson, University of Aberdeen, author of Identity and Ecology in Arctic Siberia: The Number One Reindeer Brigade"A son of two great Russian poets and an inmate of Stalin's Gulag, Lev Gumilev was the founding father of neo-Eurasianism, a powerful ideological framework for claiming Russia's special civilization and for justifying its predominance on the territory of the USSR. In tracing the origins and transformation of Gumilev’s theories, this book provides the best available explanation of the appeal of neo-Eurasianism in Russia,including among its top political leaders." -- Vera Tolz-Zilitinkevic, University of Manchester, author of Russia’s Own Orient: The Politics of Identity and Oriental Studies in the Late Imperial and Early Soviet Periods"In 1996, the government of independent Kazakhstan named a new university after him. In 2005, the capital of Tatarstan commemorated his work by erecting a statue in the middle of Kazan. There is a mountain peak in the Altai range and a street in the Kalmyk Elista named after him. A son of Russia's two major poets, a prisoner of the Gulag, a celebrity historian, and a key figure behind the revival of the Eurasianist movement, Lev Gumilev was the man who provided postsocialist nationalisms with a conceptual lexicon and theoretical models. In this lucid and informative book, Mark Bassin meticulously reconstructs historical details, social networks, and intellectual contexts that shaped Gumilev's essentializing theory of 'biological communities’ and their ethnogenesis. The Gumilev Mystique is an important and timely biography of the ideas that continue to constitute the theoretical core of nation building processes in postcommunist societies." -- Serguei Alex. Oushakine, Princeton University, author of The Patriotism of Despair: Nation, War, and Loss in RussiaTable of ContentsIntroduction Part 1 GUMILEV'S THEORY OF ETHNOS AND ETHNOGENESIS1. The Nature of Ethnicity2. Ethnogenesis, Passionarnost′, and the Biosphere 3. Varieties of Ethnic Interaction 4. The Ethnogenetic Drama of Russian History Part 2 THE SOVIET RECEPTION OF GUMILEV5. Soviet Visions of Society and Nature 6. Ethnicity as Ideology and Politics 7. Gumilev and the Russian Nationalists Part 3 GUMILEV AFTER COMMUNISM8. Neo-Eurasianism and the Russian Question 9. Biopolitics and the Ubiquity of Ethnicity 10. "The Patron of the Turkic Peoples" Conclusion: The Political Significance of Gumilev

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