Cultural Anthropology

Join the journey to the planet’s most impressive places – and crack the blueprint for a utopian world. If you've ever wondered what it would take to build a perfect world, you are not alone. A utopia full of happiness, health and abundance might sound like a pipe dream. But, if you look closely enough, the world is already full of utopias. The Utopia Playbook explores the countries that top the world’s indices in all the metrics that matter. Tap the secrets of: Finland, which is the world’s happiest country Hong Kong, which has the longest life expectancy Bhutan, which is carbon ...

Who is considered most at risk for diabetes, and why? In this thorough, engaging book, historian Arleen Tuchman examines and critiques how these questions have been answered by both the public and medical communities for over a century in the United States. Beginning in the late 19th century, Tuchman describes how at different times Jews, middle-class whites, American Indians, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans have been labeled most at risk for developing diabetes, and that such claims have reflected and perpetuated troubling assumptions about race, ethnicity, and class.

Each person has a “Vector of the Mind” whose direction and magnitude can be assessed by using the questionnaire appearing in the book. For people with a western paradigm of mind who locate their self at the center, the “Vector of the Mind” is inwardly oriented. People with an eastern paradigm of mind, who are focused on the group, have an outward oriented “Vector of the Mind”. The encounter with an individual whose “Vector of the Mind” is opposed to ours creates a cross-cultural gap that hinders communication. “Babel – a Guide to the East-West Encounter” surveys the ...

A story of defiance and determination by a controversial scientist, this is Lee Berger's own take on finding Homo naledi, an all-new species on the human family tree and one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century. In 2013, Lee Berger, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence, heard of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground cave in South Africa. He put out a call around the world for petite collaborators - men and women small and adventurous enough to be able to squeeze through eight-inch tunnels to reach a sunless cave forty feet underground. It worked.

In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to 'bad people'" (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent meaningful cross-racial dialogue.

Adult Third Culture Kids are rapidly increasing in number around the world. A people group hidden in plain sight around us, they are children of diplomats, military personnel, missionaries, and refugees. They can look like us, sound like us, act like us, but then also jump into a culture and country on the other side of the world where they may look like a foreigner but act and sound like a local. These people who grew up in multiple countries during their formative years are frequently misunderstood by their peers and family. However, they have a wealth of experiences and skills they've ...

In his groundbreaking follow-up to the bestselling The Road to Somewhere, David Goodhart divides society into people who work with their Heads (cognitive work), with their Hands (manual work), or with their Hearts (caring work), and considers each group’s changing status and influence. Today, the “best and the brightest” trump the “decent and hardworking.” Qualities like character, compassion, craft, and physical labor command far less respect in our workforce. This imbalance has led to the disaffection and alienation of millions of people.

The Intertwined Legacies of Adam and Mitochondrial Eve Out of Africa Theory of Human Evolution. Explore Humanity's Greatest Story: The Journey That Connects Us All! Dive into the origins of humanity with The Intertwined Legacies of Adam and Mitochondrial Eve. This groundbreaking exploration of the Out of Africa Theory of Human Evolution will challenge your perceptions, spark your curiosity, and leave you in awe of the journey that unites us all. From the discovery of our shared genetic heritage to the breathtaking story of migration, adaptation, and survival, this book connects the dots ...

What if the legends of the past weren’t just stories, but blueprints for understanding a hidden reality? Pursuit of the Wayfinders takes you deep into a world where ancient rituals, forgotten realms, and the unspoken laws of survival converge in ways that will challenge everything you thought you knew. In this captivating journey, we follow James, an ethnographer determined to uncover the mysteries of the elusive Wayfinders—mythical beings whose mastery over the ocean depths has made them the subject of both wonder and skepticism. Guided by a series of breathtaking encounters, James ...

For fans of Sapiens and The Dawn of Everything, a groundbreaking exploration of gendered oppression—its origins, its histories, our attempts to understand it, and our efforts to combat it.

In 1945, Germany lay in ruins, morally and materially. Its citizens stood condemned by history, responsible for a horrifying genocide and war of extermination. But by the end of Angela Merkel’s tenure in 2021, Germany looked like the moral voice of Europe. How did a nation whose past has been marked by mass murder reinvent themselves, and how much? Trentmann tells this dramatic story of the German people from the middle of the Second World War through the Cold War and the division of East and West to the fall of the Berlin Wall and their struggle to find their place in the world today.

Yuval Noah Harari, author of the best-selling Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, envisions a not-too-distant world in which we face a new set of challenges. Now, in Homo Deus, he examines our future with his trademark blend of science, history, philosophy and every discipline in between. Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the 21st century - from overcoming death to creating artificial life.

Spanning an extraordinary range of subjects and locations, these ten gripping essays show why Jon Krakauer is considered a standard-bearer of modern journalism.

At a time when we are all confronted by not one, but many crossroads in our modern lives - identity, technology, trust, politics, and a global pandemic - celebrated mythologist and wilderness guide Martin Shaw delivers Smoke Hole: three metaphors to help us understand our world, one that is assailed by the seductive promises of social media and shadowed by a health crisis that has brought loneliness and isolation to an all-time high.

This majestic novel by the author of India Unbound is the extraordinary chronicle, rich in passion and incident, of a Punjabi family that is uprooted from its settled existence in Lyallpur by the violence of Partition and forced to flee to India. Everything is lost in the transition, but when a son is born into the family, hopes revive of rebuilding the family's fortunes, the efforts toward which mirror those of India itself as it struggles to build itself anew.

A definitive, comprehensive and engrossing chronicle of one of the greatest dynasties of the world—the Mughal—from its founder Babur to Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last of the clan the magnificent Mughal legacy is an inexhaustible source of inspiration to historians, writers, moviemakers, artists and ordinary mortals alike. Here is a fascinating and riveting saga that brings alive a spectacular bygone era—authentically and convincingly.

The film Rabbit-Proof Fence is based on this true account of Doris Pilkington's mother Molly, who as a young girl led her two sisters on an extraordinary 1,600 kilometer walk home. Under Western Australia's invidious removal policy of the 1930s, the girls were taken from their Aboriginal families at Jigalong on the edge of the Little Sandy Desert, and transported halfway across the state to the Native Settlement at Moore River, north of Perth. Here Aboriginal children were instructed in the ways of white society and forbidden to speak their native tongue.

Placing the West's failure to acknowledge the most successful slave revolt in history alongside denials of the Holocaust and the debate over the Alamo, Michel-Rolph Trouillot offers a stunning meditation on how power operates in the making and recording of history.

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.

From Colonial America's founding settlements through the Gilded Age to the present day, Gross traces the complex legacy of American WASPs through the lives of fifteen influential individuals and their very privileged, sometimes intermarried families. As the clans progress, prosper, and periodically stumble, defining aspects in the four-century sweep of American history emerge.