As the planet’s human numbers grow and environmental concerns proliferate, natural scientists, economists, and policy-makers are increasingly turning to new and old questions about families and
This is the long-awaited fifth edition of Marshall Sahlins’ classic series of bon mots, ruminations, and musings on the ancients, anthropology, and much else in between. It’s been twenty-f
As the People’s Republic of China has grown in economic power, so too have concerns about what its sustained growth and expanding global influence might mean for the established global order. Explorat
“The most interesting human beings, so far as talk is concerned, are anthropologists, farmers, prostitutes, psychiatrists, and the occasional bartender.” So wrote Joseph Mitchell, the legendary New Yo
We often assume that science and myth stand in opposition—with science providing empirically supported truths that replace the false ideas found in traditional mythologies. But the rhetoric of contemp
In this lucid and insightful essay, renowned linguist Roy Harris reflects on the early nineteenth-century doctrine of “art for art’s sake.” This was attacked by Proudhon and Nietzsc
How can economics become genuinely quantitative? This is the question that French sociologist Gabriel Tarde tackled at the end of his career, and in this pamphlet, Bruno Latour and Vincent Antonin Lep
Increasingly today, intellectual rights over traditional knowledge are fiercely contested and have revived debates about culture in major ways. But how should we make sense of the politics and meanin
Adapting the discontinuous and multi-tonal critical procedures of works like Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus and Laura Riding’s Anarchism Is Not Enough, Jerome McGann subjects current literary
Politicians, pundits, and Pentagon officials are singing the praises of a kinder, gentler American counterinsurgency. Some claim that counterinsurgency is so sophisticated and effective that it is th
What do you say after you say that the world - or at least human life on it - looks like it's nearing its end? How about starting with wonder at the possibility that subjectivity and dialogue - human
Why do we understand media the way we do? Sometimes we think about media simply as means of communication and instruments of human creativity. At other times we understand media as powerful technolog
Pasta and pizza are inextricably connected to Italian identity. In this book, Franco La Cecla tells the story of how a food born in the south of Italy during the Arab conquest became a foundation for
Far from an unfortunate cliche medievalism has become a dominant paradigm for comprehending the identity and motivations of America's perceived enemy in the War on Terror. Yet as Bruce Holsinger argue
Evolutionary psychology claims to be the authoritative science of "human nature." Its chief architects, including Stephen Pinker and David Buss, have managed to reach well beyond the ivory tower to w
It's an enduring axiom of political science: before there is democracy, there is rule of law. The pillars of the American legal system, however, are falling apart. And so too, argues Thomas Geoghegan
Art criticism was once passionate, polemical and judgmental: now critics are more often interested in ambiguity, neutrality, and nuanced description. And while art criticism is ubiquitous in newspape
A key figure in theory and criticism, James Clifford has published seminal essays on topics ranging from art and identity to museum studies and fieldwork. This collection of interviews captures Cliff
The Companion Species Manifesto is about the implosion of nature and culture in the joint lives of dogs and people, who are bonded in "significant otherness." In all their historical complexity, Donna
First devised as after-dinner entertainment at a decennial meeting of the Association of Social Anthropologists in Great Britain, and first published by Prickly Pear Press in 1993, this expanded editi
