Search results for ""author allen johnson""

The idea of a family level society, discussed and disputed by anthropologists for nearly half a century, assumes moving, breathing form in "Families of the Forest". According to Allen Johnson's deft ethnography, the Matsigenka people of southeastern Peru cannot be understood or appreciated except as a family level society; the family level of sociocultural integration is for them a lived reality. Under ordinary circumstances, the largest social units are individual households or small extended-family hamlets. In the absence of such 'tribal' features as villages, territorial defense and warfare, local or regional leaders, and public ceremonials, these people put a premium on economic self-reliance, control of aggression within intimate family settings, and freedom to believe and act in their own perceived self-interest. Johnson shows how the Matsigenka, whose home is the Amazon rainforest, are able to meet virtually all their material needs with the skills and labor available to the individual household. They try to raise their children to be independent and self-reliant, yet in control of their emotional, impulsive natures, so that they can get along in intimate, cooperative living groups. Their belief that self-centered impulsiveness is dangerous and self-control is fulfilling anchors their moral framework, which is expressed in abundant stories and myths. Although, as Johnson points out, such people are often described in negative terms as lacking in features of social and cultural complexity, he finds their small-community lifestyle efficient, rewarding, and very well adapted to their environment.

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How do you find love where love does not exist?From out of a barefoot boyhood among endless rows of olive trees, and a forbidden passion for a courageous Moroccan beauty, to a horrific struggle against tyranny in the war-torn streets of 1936 Granada, comes a story where love cannot exist without mercy . . . mercy one carries for one’s whole life as a badge of honor . . . mercy and compassion passed down from generation to generation.Diego Garcia is now the gentle patriarch in a sun-scorched village perched among the rolling hills and olive groves of Andalusia, Spain. Diego survived the bloody Spanish Civil War only at great cost, and his enduring wish is that he could have saved others. His granddaughter, the lovely Lupita, is the town’s physician, whose competence is surpassed only by her compassion. Together they breathe new life into a mysterious American stranger, brutally beaten and robbed, suffering from amnesia, whose suppressed past is so scarred by his own malice and deceit that he dare not awaken—save through the guiding grace of love.Together, the three forge a new beginning and find redemption in trust, love, and acceptance of the past . . . a past they would do anything to leave behind.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

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