Anthropology Science

In 1955, on a visit to South Africa, Robert Ardrey became aware of the growing evidence that man had evolved on the African continent from carnivorous, predatory stock - ones who had also, long before man, achieved the use of weapons. A dramatist, Ardrey's interest in the African discoveries sprang less from purely scientific grounds than from the radical new light they cast on the eternal question: Why do we behave as we do? Are we naturally inclined towards war and weapons?

For over a century we saw Neanderthals as inferior to Homo Sapiens. After new discoveries, the pendulum swung the other way and they are generally seen as our relatives: not quite human, but similar enough, and still not equal. Now, thanks to an ongoing revolution in palaeoanthropology in which he has played a key part, Ludovic Slimak shows us that they are something altogether different - and they should be understood on their own terms rather than by comparing them to ourselves. As he reveals in this stunning book, the Neanderthals had their own history, their own rituals, their own customs.

In Lurking, Joanne McNeil digs deep and identifies the primary (if sometimes contradictory) concerns of people online: searching, safety, privacy, identity, community, anonymity, and visibility. She charts what it is that brought people online and what keeps us here even as the social equations of digital life - what we’re made to trade, knowingly or otherwise, for the benefits of the internet - have shifted radically beneath us. It is a story we are accustomed to hearing as tales of entrepreneurs and visionaries and dynamic and powerful corporations.

The Mind of the Market will change the way we think about the economics of everyday life. Drawing on research from neuroeconomics, Michael Shermer explores what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and how trust is established in business. Utilizing experiments in behavioral economics, Shermer shows why people hang on to losing stocks and failing companies, why business negotiations often disintegrate into emotional tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy.

We are a wonder of evolution. Powerful yet dextrous, instinctive yet thoughtful, we are expert communicators and innovators. Our exceptional abilities have created the civilisation we know today. But we're also deeply flawed. Our bodies break, choke and fail, whether we're kings or peasants. Diseases thwart our boldest plans. Our psychological biases have been at the root of terrible decisions in both war and peacetime. This extraordinary contradiction is the essence of what it means to be human - the sum total of our frailties and our faculties.

In a world where screens often replace faces, the importance of real, tangible connections stands out like a beacon, calling us back to what it truly means to be human. People with strong social connections tend to live longer than those who are socially isolated. But this isn't just about physical health; it's about the health of the soul and the comfort in shared experiences. In the chaos of daily life, the power of coming together remains undiminished.

Alone among the creatures of the world, man suffers a pang both bitter and sweet. It is an ache for the homecoming. The Greeks called it nostalgia. Post-modern man, homeless almost by definition, cannot understand nostalgia. If he is a progressive, dreaming of a utopia to come, he dismisses it contemptuously, eager to bury a past he despises. If he is a reactionary, he sentimentalizes it, dreaming of a lost golden age. In this profound reflection, Anthony Esolen explores the true meaning of nostalgia and its place in the human heart.

Bronislaw Malinowski's seminal work, Sex and Repression in Savage Society, delves into the intricate dynamics of sexuality and societal control within primitive cultures. Published in 1927, this ethnographic study challenges prevailing Victorian notions of sexuality and sheds light on the nuanced ways in which indigenous societies navigate and regulate sexual behaviors. Malinowski's immersive fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands enables him to provide a rich anthropological account, exploring the role of rituals, customs, and taboos in shaping sexual practices.

Muslim Cool is a way of being an American Muslim-displayed in ideas, dress, social activism in the 'hood, and in complex relationships to state power. Constructed through hip hop and the performance of Blackness, Muslim Cool is a way of engaging with the Black American experience by both Black and non-Black young Muslims that challenges racist norms in the U.S., as well as dominant ethnic and religious structures within American Muslim communities.

Sins of the Shovel is a story of adventure and business gone wrong and how archaeologists today grapple with this complex heritage. Through the story of the Hyde Exploring Expedition, practicing archaeologist Rachel Morgan uncovers the uncomfortable links between commodity culture, contemporary ethics, and the broader political forces that perpetuate destructive behavior today. The result is an unsparing and even-handed assessment of American archaeology's sins, past and present, and how the field is working toward atonement.

At first glance, the events in this book may seem equal parts science fiction and legal thriller. Unfortunately, this is a true story of blinding greed, cruel deceit, unfortunate circumstance, and powerful human tragedy. It has villains and heroes, but it does not yet have a good ending. It is the story of asbestos in America.

The Language Puzzle explains how the invention of words at 1.6 million years ago began the evolution of human language from the ape-like calls of our earliest ancestors to our capabilities of today, with over 6000 languages in the world and each of us knowing over 50,000 words. Drawing on the latest discoveries in archaeology, linguistics, psychology, and genetics, Steven Mithen reconstructs the steps by which language evolved; he explains how it transformed the nature of thought and culture, and how we talked our way out of the Stone Age into the world of farming and into today's Digital Age.

Each of us is endowed with an inheritance—a set of evolved biases and cultural tools that shape every facet of our behavior. For countless generations, this inheritance has taken us to ever greater heights. But now, for the first time, it’s failing us. We find ourselves hurtling toward a future of unprecedented political polarization, deadlier war, and irreparable environmental destruction. In Inheritance, renowned anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse offers a sweeping account of how our biases have shaped humanity’s past and imperiled its future.

We evolved to eat berries rather than bagels, to live in mud huts rather than condos, to sprint barefoot rather than play football - or did we? Are our bodies and brains truly at odds with modern life? Although it may seem as though we have barely had time to shed our hunter-gatherer legacy, biologist Marlene Zuk reveals that the story is not so simple. Popular theories about how our ancestors lived - and why we should emulate them - are often based on speculation, not scientific evidence. Armed with a razor-sharp wit and brilliant, eye-opening research, Zuk takes us to the cutting edge of biology to show that evolution can work much faster than was previously realized.

Democrat to Deplorable takes a deep look at the nine million Democrats who proudly switched parties to vote for President Donald Trump. These voters feel the cold edge of the culture war more than any other group, and this book captures their experiences and the current zeitgeist. Based on a national survey, in-depth interviews, and a personal narrative, Democrat to Deplorable is the definitive book which explores and explains the current cultural climate leading to President Donald Trump, Trumpism, and the New Right.

Join Biologist Ashley Ward as he takes listeners into the intimate worlds of social animals. Journeying from Aysgarth Falls to the Great Barrier Reef, it becomes clear that animals are not so far removed from us as we might imagine. In a time where humans are struggling to navigate cityscapes, isolation and a loneliness epidemic, Ward shows us that studying the social behaviour of animals offers insights valuable in their own right as well as a window into the evolutionary basis of our own species.

The rise of human civilization and all of recorded history occurred in this warm period, known as the Holocene. Until very recently, we had no detailed record of climate changes during the Holocene. Now we do. In this engrossing and captivating look at the human effects of climate variability, Brian Fagan shows how climate functioned as what the historian Paul Kennedy described as one of the “deeper transformations” of history—a more important historical factor than we understand.

In Schoolishness, Susan D. Blum continues her journey as an anthropologist and educator. The author defines "schoolishness" as educational practices that emphasize packaged "learning," unimaginative teaching, uniformity, constant evaluation by others, arbitrary forms, predetermined time, and artificial boundaries, resulting in personal and educational alienation, dependence, and dread.

After the long period of cultural decline known as the Dark Ages, Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science and began to develop a vision of Western society that remains at the heart of Western civilization today. On visits to the great cities of Europe, Thomas Cahill brilliantly captures the spirit of experimentation, the colorful pageantry, and the passionate pursuit of knowledge that built the foundations for the modern world.

Tensegrità è la versione moderna dei passi magici degli sciamani dell’antico Messico. La parola Tensegrità è una definizione molto accurata perché nasce dall’unione di due termini, tensione e integrità, che connotano le due forze trainanti dei passi magici.” Così l’antropologo peruviano Carlos Castaneda mette a fuoco il tema di questo libro: i movimenti del corpo che, secondo gli antichi riti degli stregoni, permettono di stimolare l’energia vitale dell’organismo e aumentare le capacità psichiche.