Social and cultural anthropology Books

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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Book SynopsisSoqotra, the largest island of Yemen's Soqotra Archipelago, is one of the most uniquely diverse places in the world. A UNESCO natural World Heritage Site, the island is home not only to birds, reptiles, and plants found nowhere else on earth, but also to a rich cultural history and the endangered Soqotri language. Within the span of a decade, this Indian Ocean archipelago went from being among the most marginalized regions of Yemen to promoted for its outstanding global value. Islands of Heritage shares Soqotrans' stories to offer the first exploration of environmental conservation, heritage production, and development in an Arab state. Examining the multiple notions of heritage in play for twenty-first-century Soqotra, Nathalie Peutz narrates how everyday Soqotrans came to assemble, defend, and mobilize their cultural and linguistic heritage. These efforts, which diverged from outsiders' focus on the island's natural heritage, ultimately added to Soqotrans' calls for political and cultural change during the Yemeni Revolution. Islands of Heritage shows that far from being merely a conservative endeavor, the protection of heritage can have profoundly transformative, even revolutionary effects. Grassroots claims to heritage can be a potent form of political engagement with the most imminent concerns of the present: human rights, globalization, democracy, and sustainability.Trade Review"Islands of Heritage is at once a dazzling ethnography of everyday life and a well-researched history that is as extraordinary as its subject, the island of Soqotra in the Arabian Sea. It is truly a pleasure to read." -- Steven C. Caton * Harvard University *"Nathalie Peutz has written a beautiful account of the unsettling effects of and dynamics between international conservation efforts, national politics, and Soqotran notions of heritage, history, and place. Islands of Heritage is one of the richest ethnographies of the Arabian Peninsula and Indian Ocean region that I have read in years." -- Mandana Limbert, Queens College and the Graduate Center * CUNY *"This book, the result of ten years of research and follow up, explores the sociopolitical transformation of Soqotra, the main island of Yemen's Soqotra Archipelago. Peutz offers a detailed ethnographic presentation of the complicated and unsettled recent history of the island within its larger regional and global context...Recommended." -- A. Rassam * CHOICE *"Upon closing Islands of Heritage one can only be impressed by such a piece of interdisciplinary scholarship. Nathalie Peutz brilliantly manages to bring to life and interpret the local dynamics she observed in Soqotra, updating their significance and making them meaningful beyond the archipelago of Soqotra, and that of anthropologists." -- Laurent Bonnefoy * Arabian Humanities *"Peutz's book is required reading for anthropologists, historians, political scientists, and those investigating the impact of tourism, while being readable and compelling for nonspecialists... It is a delight to read and one of the strongest anthropological texts on heritage published in recent years." -- Victoria Hightower * Arab Studies Journal *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractBeginning with an anecdote of a Soqotran teacher convening a political protest (during the Yemeni Revolution) and a poetry contest on the same day, the Introduction asks how heritage (a nominally conservative endeavor) and revolution (a nominally transformative endeavor) could be connected. It lays out the importance of studying heritage. It reviews the history and politicization of heritage in the Arab world. And it provides a geographic and historical overview of Yemen's Soqotra Archipelago, a UNESCO-inscribed natural World Heritage Site with a long genealogy of being deemed exceptional and "protected." It then describes the author's fieldwork and methodology. It concludes by arguing that, despite important arguments for working to transcend the nature-culture divide (in heritage making, as in other things), certain "islands" (boundaries) may be productive. 1Hospitality in Unsettling Times chapter abstractThis chapter introduces readers to a transhumant pastoralist community living in a newly established protected area (Homhil). It shows how the unprecedented opening of Soqotra gave rise to a crisis of hospitality, a long-held cultural value. Soqotrans' discourse of hospitality (karam) in crisis reveals significant mutations in the island's political economy and social structures, precipitated by its 1990 absorption into the unified Yemeni state and its transformation from a militarized enclave to a national protected area. Karam (and the ostensible lack of it) has become the idiom through which the islanders have been processing these changes. In light of current debates in the West about the dangers of "hosting" (im)migrants, this chapter points out that, in Soqotra, the crisis was exacerbated not nearly as much by Soqotrans' fears of being too hospitable as by their concern that they were no longer being hospitable enough. 2Hungering for the State chapter abstractDue to the archipelago's annual isolation during the southwest monsoon, in addition to its arid climate, Soqotrans are no strangers to food insecurity or famine. Accordingly, their interactions with each entering state—the Sultanate, the British Protectorate, South Yemen, and the Saleh regime—have been mediated by food. Yet, as this historical chapter demonstrates, it was not only the state's administration of food that governed Soqotrans' interactions with each regime. Soqotrans have a long history of feeding—and simultaneously "hungering" for—the state in return. Drawing on oral histories, archives, and interviews, this chapter surveys Soqotra's political history as one governed through food, famine, and fear. It argues that Soqotrans may have experienced physical hunger in the past, but in the 2000s they hungered for a state that would provide real and lasting sustenance. 3When the Environment Arrived chapter abstractThis chapter discusses the implementation of four major integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) between 1996 and 2013, which resulted in the archipelago's inscription as a UNESCO natural World Heritage Site. It begins by reviewing how these projects were preceded by the decades-long arrivals of foreign researchers and the continued dissemination of their ideas about Soqotra's environmental exceptionality. It then discusses the establishment of environmental legislation in unified Yemen (post-1990) and details the various ICDP projects that were implemented on Soqotra during this period. It ends by describing two "environmental awareness" meetings in the protected area (Homhil). Drawing on project documents and literature, observation of rural outreach and environmental awareness programs, and daily participation within a the protected-area community, this chapter reveals why "the Environment," as project and concept, failed to mobilize these pastoral communities so dependent on their natural surroundings. 4Arrested Development chapter abstractThis chapter presents an ethnographic narrative of the material, social, and political effects of several conservation-and-development initiatives in a pilot protected area inhabited by pastoralists (Bedouin). It focuses on the implementation of three development projects by the Socotra Conservation and Development Programme: a new tourist campground, a community home garden, and piped water. Although these projects were meant to improve the pastoralists' material well-being, they wound up pitting leaders, tribes, villages, and men and women within the community against one another. Through a close "mapping" of these tensions, this chapter underscores why, in these pastoralists' view, "the Environment" had little traction—despite its strong influence in the island. As a result, some Soqotrans sought to preserve their livelihoods by shifting their focus to cultural heritage instead. 5Reorienting Heritage chapter abstractThis chapter focuses on the influence of the Soqotran diaspora in island politics in the decade preceding the 2011 revolution. Beginning with an overview of the three major phases of twentieth-century emigration from Soqotra to the Arab Gulf, it illustrates how pervasive these Soqotra-Gulf connections were and are. It explores the ways in which emigrants politicized Soqotran identity, culture, heritage, and history through their histories, their poetry, and the island's first museum. And it examines the ways in which the diaspora sought to denature and reorient Soqotran heritage by shifting the focus from nature to culture, from Soqotran autochthony to Arab descent, from Indian Ocean hybridity to genealogical purity, and from the Yemeni nation to the transnational Gulf. These heterogeneous, kaleidoscopic, and entangled processes of heritage making reveal a deep-seated anguish over past political events and an ongoing struggle to reorient Soqotra's future. 6Heritage in the Time of Revolution chapter abstractThis chapter discusses how the islanders mobilized cultural heritage in the years bracketing the Yemeni Revolution, when several positioned themselves as "para-experts" alongside foreigners working for the environmental projects. It explores three individuals' growing interest in heritage as a political and profitable resource. It examines debates over the contours of this heritage. And it traces the development of an islandwide poetry competition, its overt politicization in the wake of the Arab uprisings, and the eventual recognition of the Soqotri language in the draft constitution for the new Yemen. It argues that Soqotrans' preoccupation with their cultural heritage during this period bears a strong resemblance to nineteenth-century European nationalists' "cultivation of culture." Thus, it was not a provincial, insular, or even conservative concern. Rather, it reflects a distinctly twenty-first-century realization that vernacular languages and endemic species are on the verge of extinction. Conclusion chapter abstractThe Conclusion provides an overview of the current humanitarian crisis in Yemen and Soqotra's renewed isolation since Yemen's civil war began in 2015. It underscores what a small group of Soqotran laymen (para-experts) were able to achieve through their mobilization of cultural heritage during a time of crisis, before the war. It then briefly discusses the two most recent, and potentially competing, visions for the archipelago: UAE-funded development and a new, Global Environment Facility (GEF)-funded conservation-and-development project. It offers suggestions for how ethnic and linguistic minorities like Soqotrans can be supported in their cultural work. And it concludes with some lessons learned from the author's interlocutors.

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Book SynopsisA bold and provocative look at how the nonprofit sphere’s expansion has helped—and hindered—the LGBT cause What if the very structure on which social movements rely, the nonprofit system, is reinforcing the inequalities activists seek to eliminate? That is the question at the heart of this bold reassessment of the system’s massive expansion since the mid-1960s. Focusing on the LGBT movement, Myrl Beam argues that the conservative turn in queer movement politics, as exemplified by the shift toward marriage and legal equality, is due mostly to the movement’s embrace of the nonprofit structure. Based on oral histories as well as archival research, and drawing on the author’s own extensive activist work, Gay, Inc. presents four compelling case studies. Beam looks at how people at LGBT nonprofits in Minneapolis and Chicago grapple with the contradictions between radical queer social movements and their institutionalized iterations. Through interview subjects’ incisive, funny, and heartbreaking commentaries, Beam exposes a complex world of committed people doing the best they can to effect change, and the flawed structures in which they participate, rail against, ignore, and make do. Providing a critical look at a social formation whose sanctified place in the national imagination has for too long gone unquestioned, Gay, Inc. marks a significant contribution to scholarship on sexuality, neoliberalism, and social movements.Trade Review"Gay, Inc. is a beacon of persuasive clarity, outlining the emotionally compelling but politically compromising role of nonprofit organizations in LGBTQ life. With nuanced ethnographic research, Myrl Beam provokes us to see the conflicts between mission and fundraising, between participants and donors, that shape our deepest commitments to social justice. Gay, Inc. is a must read for scholars and activists alike."—Lisa Duggan, New York University"An essential read for anyone who is trying to figure out how social change works, Gay, Inc. helps us understand queer and trans resistance in depth, bringing new insight into social movement debates about the role of nonprofits using grounded histories of resistance and conflict within queer politics."—Dean Spade, Seattle University School of LawTable of ContentsIntroduction1. Neoliberalism, Nonprofitization, and Social Change2. The Work of Compassion: Institutionalizing Affective Economies of AIDS and Homelessness3. Community and Its Others: Safety, Space, and Nonprofitization4. Capital and Nonprofitization: At the Limits of “By and For”5. Navigating the Crisis of Neoliberalism: A Stance of Undefeated DespairConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisA selection of the writings of Alphonso Lingis, showcasing a unique blend of travelogue, cultural anthropology, and philosophy Alphonso Lingis is arguably the most intriguing American philosopher of the past fifty years—a scholar of transience, someone who has visited and revisited more than one hundred countries and has woven this itinerary into his writing and allowed it to give form to his thinking. This book assembles a representative selection of Lingis’s work to give readers a thorough sense of his methodology and vision, the diversity of his subject matter, and the unity of his thought.Lingis’s writing evinces the many kinds of knowledge and subtle forces circulating through human communities and their environments. His unique style blends travel writing, cultural anthropology, and personal accounts of his innumerable experiences as an active participant in the adventures and relationships that fill his life. Drawing from countless articles, essays, and interviews published over fifty years, editor Tom Sparrow chose works that follow Lingis’s engaging, often intimate reflections on the body in motion and the myriad influences—social, cultural, aesthetic, libidinal, physical, mythological—that shape and animate it as it moves through the world, among people and places both foreign and domestic, familiar and unknown. In a substantial Introduction, Sparrow provides a biographical, critical, intellectual, and cultural context for reading and appreciating Alphonso Lingis’s work.An extended encounter with the singular philosopher, The Alphonso Lingis Reader conducts us through Lingis’s early writing on phenomenology to his hybrid studies fusing philosophy, psychoanalysis, anthropology, communication theory, aesthetics, and other disciplines, to his original, inspired arguments about everything from knowledge to laughter to death.Trade Review"Here we find Lingis at his most hopeful, even at times humanistic, but in the most original and compelling ways, without sentimentality or superstition."—Tom Sparrow, from the IntroductionTable of ContentsContentsEditor’s Introduction: A Philosopher of TransiencePart I: Sensing the WorldSensation and Sentiment: On the Meaning of ImmanenceSensuality and SensitivityA Phenomenology of SubstancesThe ElementsThe LevelsThe Pageantry of ThingsThe Weight of RealityMetaphysical HabitatsPart II: Embodied SubjectsIntentionality and CorporeityI Am a…Orchids and Muscles Cause, Choice, ChanceReturn of the First Person SingularContactMortalityPart III: Traveling: Pedagogy of the OtherThe Unlived Life Is Not Worth ExaminingLustFluid EconomyThe Navel of the WorldAraouaneRingsTyphoonsPart IV: Knowledge, Meaning, and ExcessFaces, Idols, FetishesThe Murmur of the WorldThe Elemental That FacesPhantom EquatorViolationsUnknowable IntelligenceBreakoutWounds and WordsSacrilegePart V: How We Get Along and How We LoseOur Uncertain CompassionDignityIrrevocable LossLove JunkiesTruth in ReconciliationCatastrophic TimePreface to TrustWar and SplendorNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisThe thesis of Human Diversity is that advances in genetics and neuroscience are overthrowing an intellectual orthodoxy that has ruled the social sciences for decades. The core of the orthodoxy consists of three dogmas:- Gender is a social construct.- Race is a social construct.- Class is a function of privilege. The problem is that all three dogmas are half-truths. They have stifled progress in understanding the rich texture that biology adds to our understanding of the social, political, and economic worlds we live in.It is not a story to be feared. "There are no monsters in the closet," Murray writes, "no dread doors we must fear opening." But it is a story that needs telling. Human Diversity does so without sensationalism, drawing on the most authoritative scientific findings, celebrating both our many differences and our common humanity.

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE CAROL R. EMBER BOOK PRIZE FOR SCIENTIFIC ANTHROPOLGY SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE From fire walking to funerals, the hidden science of the rituals that give life meaning Ritual is perhaps the oldest, and certainly the most enigmatic, thread in human culture. Apparently pointless ceremonies pervade every documented society: from handshakes to hexes, hazings to parades. Before we learned to farm, we were gathering in giant stone temples. And yet, though rituals exist in every culture and can persist nearly unchanged for centuries, their logic has remained a mystery until now. Today, a fearless new generation of anthropologists is venturing into this shadowy realm. Armed with cutting-edge technology and drawing on discoveries from a huge range of disciplines, they emerge with a powerful new perspective on our place in the world. Join the pathfinding scientist Dimitris Xygalatas on a tour of human culture at its strangest. In coronations, in silent prayer, in fire-walks and in all the bewildering variety of humanity's ritual life, Xygalatas reveals the deep and subtle mechanisms that bind us together.Trade ReviewA fascinating well researched book about a fascinating subject. You will learn a lot -- Dr Jane Goodall, DBEA gripping guide to rites and customs around the world ... this engrossing account begs a sequel * New Scientist *Fascinating ... pacy, adventurous * Mail on Sunday *An elegantly simple and deeply persuasive argument which generalises to other forms of delusional belief. -- Professor Mark Solms, author * The Hidden Spring *The great mystery of human behavior is ritual. How do we explain circumcisions, debutante balls, hazing, royal coronations, and fire-walking? Dimitris Xygalatas is a brilliant polymath and this fascinating book explores this question through a mix of scientific research, evolutionary theorizing, and deep immersion into cultures with gruesome and painful rituals. An important intellectual contribution and a true delight to read -- Paul Bloom, author * The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning *Xygalatas' account of how our tendency to conduct weird routines can make us feel better individually or as part of a group is a thoroughly satisfying scientific detective story. His evidence may be culled from around the world but the lessons apply to all of us. -- Richard Wrangham, author * Catching Fire, The Goodness Paradox *From the firewalking ceremonies of Greece to the terrifying rites of Amazonia, the anthropologist-cum-psychologist Dimitris Xygalatas leads readers on a whitewater tour of the new science of rituals, exploring and explaining how and why all human societies engage in seemingly senseless, repetitive and obscure customs that integrate rhythm, dance, music, pain and sacrifice. Rich in ethnographic detail, personal narratives and psychological experiments, Ritual tells us how we can use this new science, and the wisdom embedded in ancient traditions, to elevate our lives, improve our health and strengthen our communities -- Joe Henrich, Professor and Chair of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, and author * The WEIRDest People in the World *One of the best studies of ritual in years. In elegant, clean prose, Xygalatas draws on traditional ethnography and contemporary social science to show that rituals play a central role in the way we define who we are and in the health of our bodies. The book is a superb introduction both to classic anthropological theory and the modern science that extends its insights. Xygalatas shows that humans are indeed the ritual species -- Tanya Marie Luhrmann, author * How God Becomes Real *Why do people walk on hot coals, scarify themselves, pierce their bodies with sharp objects, fast, kneel, handle poisonous snakes, endure hours of boring sermons on their days off? Like the question of how dosing ourselves with alcohol, a low-grade neurotoxin, has persisted and endured so long as a practice among human cultures, the prevalence of pragmatically useless and yet often costly and painful rituals across human cultures is a mystery hiding in plain sight. Armed with new tools, such as biometric sensors and hormone sampling, Xygalatas reveals the inner workings and crucial functions of ritual, which explain both its antiquity and ubiquity ... An entertaining and engaging introduction to the cognitive science of ritual by one of the pioneers of the field -- Edward Slingerland, author * Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization *We are ritual beings; we surround ourselves with rituals - at birth, death and everywhere in between. But why do rituals matter to us when they so often bring so few obvious benefits? In this striking, wonderfully written, and original new book, Dimitris Xygalatas unravels the mystery of how rituals - from the mundane to the bizarrely violent - can be the source of transformative power -- Michael Patrick Lynch, author * The Internet of Us: Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data *With a knack for showing how 'strange' behaviours are closer to home than we realize, Xygalatas masterfully explains how what binds us to other human beings are our most mysterious activities - rituals. Actions with no clear purpose are often, ironically, the most meaningful things we do. -- Jesse Bering, Professor of Science Communication at the University of Otago and author * Suicidal *Ritual is a deep, engaging, magnificent book. Full of vivid stories about the myriad ritual behaviors of human beings - from the prayers made to countless gods to kissing dice at craps to wearing feathered gloves full of biting ants to walking barefoot on hot coals - it shows how humans turn ordinary life into something awe-inspiring, how we use shared rituals to transcend our solitary selves. Xygalatas walks through fire himself, literally and intellectually, to share great wisdom about the human condition. * Nicholas A. Christakis, author of Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society *

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Book SynopsisLONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 'With intelligence and care (as well as with a trove of sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes heart-opening true stories) Heather McGhee shows us what racism has cost all of us' - Elizabeth Gilbert Picked for the Financial Times Summer Books by Gillian Tett What would make a society drain its public swimming baths and fill them with concrete rather than opening them to everyone? Economics researcher Heather McGhee sets out across America to learn why white voters so often act against their own interests. Why do they block changes that would help them, and even destroy their own advantages, whenever people of colour also stand to benefit? Their tragedy is that they believe they can't win unless somebody else loses. But this is a lie. McGhee marshals overwhelming economic evidence, and a profound well of empathy, to reveal the surprising truth: even racists lose out under white supremacy. And US racism is everybody's problem. As McGhee shows, it was bigoted lending policies that laid the ground for the 2008 financial crisis. There can be little prospect of tackling global climate change until America's zero-sum delusions are defeated. The Sum of Us offers a priceless insight into the workings of prejudice, and a timely invitation to solidarity among all humans, 'to piece together a new story of who we could be to one another'.Trade ReviewShocking [and] hard to argue with ... McGhee is on [an] ambitious mission. [Her] optimistic demeanour [and] research also inspires hope ... It is tantalisingly easy to embrace her vision -- Gillian Tett * FT *This is the book I've been waiting for -- Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author * How to Be an Antiracist *A must-read for everyone -- Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives MatterImpactful ... McGhee weaves together personal anecdotes and family history, reporting and social science to present an image of what the United States is, but does not have to be. It is a picture some Americans grew up seeing, which others ignore at their peril -- Emily Tamkin * New Statesman *With intelligence and care (as well as with a trove of sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes heart-opening true stories) Heather McGhee shows us what racism has cost all of us -- Elizabeth Gilbert * Eat, Pray, Love *A vital, urgent, stirring, beautifully written book that offers a compassionate roadmap out of our present troubled moment -- George Saunders, Booker Prize-winning authorThere is a striking clarity to this book; there is also a depth of kindness in it that all but the most churlish readers will find moving -- Jennifer Szalai * New York Times *Very real, and very hopeful, and that's the rarest of combinations. It will be a classic on the day it's published -- Bill McKibben, author * Falter *The beauty and power of this book is blinding. Heather McGhee is one of our society's brightest minds and The Sum of Us serves as a torch that we must follow to get us to a better place. The impact of racism is all encompassing, and this book doesn't just highlight that, it gives us a road map for the future. I am better because of this book. Our country will be better because of this book -- Wes Moore, bestselling author of Five Days and The Other Wes MooreA powerful, singular, and prescriptive blend of the macro and the intimate * O Magazine *Political commentator McGhee argues in her astute and persuasive debut that income inequality and the decline of the middle and working classes are a direct result of the country's long history of racial injustice ... This sharp, thorough, and engrossing report casts America's racial divide in a new light * Publishers Weekly, starred *An eye-opening, powerful argument for working ever harder for racial equity * Kirkus, starred *Heather McGhee does not shy away from telling hard truths. Racism sits at the heart of America, and McGhee shows its effects on the very people who cleave to it. The Sum of Us removes the cloak from this land of so-called innocents and brilliantly offers a path forward for the nation. This book is for all of us standing in the breach, working towards social change. With care and unflinching honesty, McGhee has written an extraordinary book for these difficult days -- Eddie S. Glaude Jr., author of Begin Again

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Book SynopsisMarrying the findings of the new field of social neuroscience together with gripping human stories, award-winning author and psychologist Susan Pinker explores the impact of face-to-face contact from cradle to grave, from city to Sardinian mountain village, from classroom to workplace, from love to marriage to divorce. Her results are enlightening and enlivening, and they challenge our assumptions. Most of us have left the literal village behind, and don't want to give up our new technologies to go back there. But, as Pinker writes so compellingly, we need close social bonds and uninterrupted face-time with our friends and families in order to thrive - even to survive. Creating our own 'village effect' can make us happier. It can also save our lives.Trade ReviewA terrific book . . . Pinker makes a hardheaded case for a softhearted virtue. Read this book. Then talk about it - in person! - with a friend. * Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of Drive and To Sell Is Human *Susan Pinker's delightful book shows why face-to-face interaction at home, school, and work makes us healthier, smarter, and more successful. * Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of The Power of Habit *The benefits of the digital age have been oversold. Or to put it another way: there is plenty of life left in face-to-face, human interaction. That is the message emerging from this entertaining book by Susan Pinker, a Canadian psychologist. Citing a wealth of research and reinforced with her own arguments, Pinker suggests we should make an effort - at work and in our private lives - to promote greater levels of personal intimacy. * Financial Times *Drawing on scores of psychological and sociological studies, Pinker suggests that living as our ancestors did, steeped in face-to-face contact and physical proximity, is the key to health, while loneliness is less an exalted existential state than a public health risk. * Boston Globe *

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Book SynopsisAll Year Round is brimming with things to make, activities, stories, poems and songs to share with your family. It is full of well-illustrated ideas for fun and celebration: from Candlemas to Christmas and Midsummer''s day to the Winter solstice.Observing the round of festivals is an enjoyable way to bring rhythm into children''s lives and provide a series of meaningful landmarks to look forward to. Each festival has a special character of its own: participation can deepen our understanding and love of nature and bring a gift to the whole family. All Year Round invites you to start celebrating now!

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Book SynopsisWaiting is an inescapable part of life in modern societies. We all wait, albeit differently and for different reasons. What does it mean to wait for a long period of time? How do people narrate their waiting? Waiting is about the senses. If you do not sense it, there is no waiting. We sense waiting in the form of boredom, despair, anxiety and restlessness, but also anticipation and hope. Prolonged waiting is like insomnia - a state of wakefulness, a kind of mood, an emotional state. But it is also about politics; affecting and affected by gender, citizenship, class, and race. Blending ethnography, philosophy, poetry, art, and fiction, this book is a collection of works by scholars, visual artists, writers, architects and curators, exploring different forms of waiting in diverse geographical contexts, and the enduring effects of history, power, class, and coloniality.

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Book Synopsis"The first full-length monograph on the history of the Ryukyu Islands in any Western language…a standard work."—Pacific AffairsOkinawa: The History of an Island People is the definitive book available in English on the history of Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands, and an influential scholarly work in the field of Japanese studies. The histories of Japan, Okinawa and the entire Pacific region are crucially intertwined; therefore the review of this fascinating chain of islands is crucial to understanding all of East Asia. Few people can point to Okinawa on a map, yet this tiny island sitting between China and Japan is a hub for international affairs. The island was, and continues to be, one of the most crucial Asian nerve centers in all U.S. strategic defense. Ninety percent of all U.S. military forces in Japan are located on Okinawa, and more than 500,000 military personnel and their families have lived there. In Okinawa: The History of an Island People, noted Eastern affairs specialist George Kerr recounts the fascinating history of the island and its environs, from 1314 A.D. to the late twentieth century. First published in 1958, this edition features an introduction and appendix by Okinawa history scholar Mitsugu Sakihara, making this the most comprehensive resource on the intriguing island of Okinawa.Trade Review"[Okinawa: The History of an Island People] is history, firm, frank, organized and detailed, from the mythical past to the military present…It is a lifetime work of scholarship, full of life" --Mainichi Daily News"The first comprehensive history of the Ryukyuan people to appear in any Western language…recommended to students of East Asian culture, who will find it a valuable addition to their libraries." --The American Anthropologist"[Okinawa: The History of an Island People is] a book that answers the questions of the curious layman, satisfies the standards of critical scholarship, and is readable and fascinating besides." --American Historical Review

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Book SynopsisThe ultimate visual guide to Samurai history and culture! The Samurai are continuously celebrated as the greatest warriors the world has ever seen. They ruled Japan for centuries, finally uniting the nation after a prolonged period of brutal war and bloodshed. Though famed for their loyalty, honor, and chivalry, they could also be treacherous, bloodthirsty, and merciless.This book tells the story of their rise and eventual demise through carefully curated images, both historical and contemporary, with an engaging and authoritative text by Gavin Blair—a noted commentator on all things Japanese. It exposes the myths surrounding the Samurai and reveals their many secrets, while examining their enduring influence on global culture in anime, manga, books, and video games. Gorgeously illustrated with color prints, paintings, and photos throughout, this book features detailed chapters on: The rise of the Japanese warrior class and how they established their grip on political power Rival clans, legendary Samurai, the unification of warlord states, and famous female Samurai Samurai "tools of the trade"—swords, bows, spears, guns, castles, and armor The cult of Bushido, the fabled warrior's code The transformation of Samurai into cultured "gentlemen" warriors, poets, and aristocrats Their legacy in modern world literature, media, film, and popular culture And so much more! A foreword by leading Samurai historian Alexander Bennett, the celebrated translator of works such as The Complete Musashi and Hagakure, introduces readers to these fascinating warriors, who continue to captivate modern audiences.Trade Review"The book presents a fascinating account of the historical role of the samurai in the military, political and social development of Japan; of their unique status in Japanese cinema, TV and other media; and of the enduring effects of their legacy on contemporary Japanese life." -- Acumen, the magazine of the British Chamber of Commerce in Japan"The major draw of the book is the colorful visuals that bring the text to life. Containing over 250 paintings, photos and illustrations, the book widens its potential audience to include young children and people who are not strong readers, as well as tapping into the interests of those who are drawn to samurai history and culture through visual media such as anime or gaming." --The Japan Times

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Book SynopsisTwenty-five years ago, a young musician and painter named Martin Prechtel wandered through the brilliant landscapes of Mexico and Guatemala. Arriving at Santiago Atitlan, a Tzutujil Mayan village on the breathtaking shores of Lake Atitlan, Prechtel met Nicolas Chiviliu Tacaxoy--perhaps the most famous shaman in Tzutujil history--who believed Prechtel was the new student he had asked the gods to provide. For the next thirteen years, Prechtel studied the ancient Tzutujil culture and became a village chief and a famous shaman in his own right.In Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, Prechtel brings to vivid life the sights, sounds, scents, and colors of Santiago Atitlan: its magical personalities, its beauty, its material poverty and spiritual richness, its eight-hundred-year-old rituals juxtaposed with quintessential small-town gossip. The story of his education is a tale filled with enchantment, danger, passion, and hope.

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Book SynopsisIn the New York Times bestseller Everything All at Once, Bill Nye shows you how thinking like a nerd is the key to changing yourself and the world around you. Everyone has an inner nerd just waiting to be awakened by the right passion. In Everything All at Once, Bill Nye will help you find yours. With his call to arms, he wants you to examine every detail of the most difficult problems that look unsolvable—that is, until you find the solution. Bill shows you how to develop critical thinking skills and create change, using his “everything all at once” approach that leaves no stone unturned. Whether addressing climate change, the future of our society as a whole, or personal success, or stripping away the mystery of fire walking, there are certain strategies that get results: looking at the world with relentless curiosity, being driven by a desire for a better future, and being willing to take the actions needed to make change happen. He shares how he came to create this approach—starting with his Boy Scout training (it turns out that a practical understanding of science and engineering is immensely helpful in a capsizing canoe) and moving through the lessons he learned as a full-time engineer at Boeing, a stand-up comedian, CEO of The Planetary Society, and, of course, as Bill Nye The Science Guy. This is the story of how Bill Nye became Bill Nye and how he became a champion of change and an advocate of science. It’s how he became The Science Guy. Bill teaches us that we have the power to make real change. Join him in... dare we say it... changing the world.

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Book SynopsisWelcome to the most interesting dinner party you?ve ever attended!Join seven friends for an evening of trivia, myth-busting, and camaraderie. You''ll have a front row seat at the party, listening in to the early small talk?where light and fun ideas are discussed (?Did you know astronauts have Velcro on the inside of their helmets to scratch their noses??)?to the end of the night, when conversations get deeper. (?Did the popularization of drinking coffee lead to modern democracies??)Packed with over 150 fun facts spanning the topics of ancient civilizations, animal behavior, natural science, outer space, human accomplishments, pop culture, and more, How to Sound Smart at Parties ensures you?ll always have something clever to contribute to the conversation.

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Book SynopsisMichèle Hayeur Smith uses Viking textiles as evidence for the little-known work of women in the Norse colonies that expanded from Scandinavia across the North Atlantic in the 9th century AD.

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Book SynopsisEmploying literary, historical, and anthropological techniques, this title attempts to generate a new understanding of issues that permeate discussions of Africa by disrupting the centrality of postcolonial texts and focusing instead on the cultural and intellectual production of colonial Africans.Trade Review“A thoroughly original work. Subject to Colonialism establishes Desai as a new authority in the study of African letters and thought across the twentieth century.” —David William Cohen, author of The Combing of History“Gaurav Desai has adopted in this study an original and productive approach to postcolonial literature by situating the discursive practices generated by the colonial encounter in a more comprehensive perspective than is usually offered in studies of this kind.”—F. Abiola Irele, Ohio State University“With its unassuming honesty, clarity of style, and fine balance of argument and information—virtues not often displayed in ‘postcolonial’ writing—this book is bound to find the readers it deserves beyond the narrow circle of the experts and the converted.”—Johannes Fabian, University of AmsterdamTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Dangerous Supplements 1. “Race,” Rationality, and the Pedagogical Imperative 2. Dangerous Liaisons? Frustrated Radicals, Master Professionals 3. Colonial Self-Fashioning and the Production of History Coda Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisDrawing on a wealth of evidence that ranges from Pre-Columbian texts to ethnographic accounts of contemporary rituals, a leading scholar traces the extensive continuity of pre-Hispanic elements in Maya ceremonies of world renewal.Trade ReviewAn important new contribution to the general study of enduring, ancient Maya traditions adapted to serve in modern times. * Choice *That the Maya continued to practice traditional beliefs within their Christianity is not novel, but the details, interviews, photos, and descriptions contained in this book's chapter's contribute a new and exciting window through which to glimpse this blending of worldviews. As a result, the work would be a beneficial read to all with scholarly interests in the Maya. * Hispanic American Historical Review *Christenson's distinct contribution lies in documenting the specific degree of blending of two entire ritual cycles rather than individual elements. For the Mesoamericanist, Christenson's book is well worth reading for his method and its content. * Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology *Much has been written about Mayan beliefs but little with the historical depth and ethnographic detail that Allen J. Christenson brings to The Burden of the Ancients...Christenson fills the book with personal ethnographic anecdotes that add richness to both the historical chapters and the contemporary descriptions of the Tz’utujil Mayas of Santiago Atitlán...This is an impressive work of scholarship. * Ethnohistory *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Pre-Columbian Rituals of World Renewal in Yucatan 2. New Year’s Ceremonies in the Maya Highlands 3. Easter and the Spanish Conquest 4. Post-Conquest Ceremonies of World Renewal 5. Holy Monday 6. Holy Tuesday 7. Holy Wednesday 8. Holy Thursday 9. Good Friday 10. Aftermath and Conclusions Bibliography Index

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