Social Anthropology

Meeting in racial affinity groups is a common practice in anti-racist, social justice, diversity, and similar educational endeavors. These groups provide a structured space in which participants can explore how racism personally impacts them, process specific experiences of racism, receive validation and support from their peers, heal, and strategize next steps for challenging racism. In A Space for Us, Michelle Cassandra Johnson brings her over twenty years of experience leading dismantling-racism work to provide the first affinity-group guide made for BIPOC communities.

Big Bone Lick: The Cradle of American Paleontology recounts the rich history of the fossil site that gave the world the first evidence of the extinction of several mammalian species, including the American mastodon. Big Bone Lick has played many roles: nutrient source, hallowed ground, salt mine, health spa, and a rich trove of wonders. Stanley Hedeen presents a comprehensive narrative of Big Bone Lick from its geological formation forward, explaining why the site attracted animals, regional tribespeople, European explorers and scientists, and eventually American pioneers.

Violation of biological command has been the failure of social man. Vertebrates though we may be, we have ignored the law of equal opportunity since civilization's earliest hours. Sexually reproducing beings though we are, we pretend today that the law of inequality does not exist. And enlightened though we may be, while we pursue the unattainable we make impossible the realizable.

Anthropomorphism is the human tendency to attribute human-like thoughts, feelings, and intentions to non-human things. It’s a cognitive bias baked into the human mind that distorts our view of the world. But it doesn’t just affect our understanding of animals. Anthropomorphism impacts our relationship to all living things, as well as inanimate objects (like AI), and natural phenomena (like hurricanes). It’s perhaps one of the most powerful cognitive biases influencing our thoughts, but it’s rarely talked about. It’s time to change that.

From a renowned historian comes a ground-breaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution, a number one international best seller that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human”.

From Aristotle to Ada Lovelace: a brief history of the mathematical ideas that have forever changed the world and the everyday people and pioneers behind them. The story of our best invention yet. From our ability to calculate the passing of time to the algorithms that control computers and much else in our lives, numbers are everywhere. They are so indispensable that we forget how fundamental they are to our way of life.

If you think you are you, think again. Primate Change is a wide-ranging, polemical look at how and why the human body has changed since humankind first got up on two feet. Spanning the entirety of human history - from primate to transhuman - Vybarr Cregan-Reid's book investigates where we came from, who we are today and how modern technology will change us beyond recognition.

Frustrated by her students' performance, her relationships with them, and her own daughter's problems in school, Susan D. Blum, a professor of anthropology, set out to understand why her students found their educational experiences at a top-tier institution so profoundly difficult and unsatisfying. Through her research and in conversations with her students, she discovered a troubling mismatch between the goals of the university and the needs of students.

Книга рассказывает о жизни людей в далекой середине XX века, о формировании увлекательной науки о мозге человека, о тех, кто в мимолетных встречах на научных форумах или в теснейших контактах повседневной работы обогатил своими мыслями и трудом изучение сложнейшего создания на нашей планете — мозга человека. В книге — о расшифровке законов активности здорового и больного мозга и о приложимости этих законов не только в медицине, но и к событиям социального порядка государственного масштаба.

For all that science knows about the living world, notes David P. Barash, there are even more things we don't know, genuine evolutionary mysteries that perplex the best minds in biology. Paradoxically, many of these mysteries are very close to home, involving some of the most personal aspects of being human. Homo Mysterious examines a number of these evolutionary mysteries, exploring things we don't yet know about ourselves, laying out the best current hypotheses, and pointing toward insights that scientists are just beginning to glimpse.

When you think of evolution, the picture that most likely comes to mind is a straight-forward progression, the iconic illustration of a primate morphing into a proud, upright human being. But in reality, random events have played huge roles in determining the evolutionary histories of everything from lions to lobsters to humans. However, random genetic novelties are most likely to become fixed in small populations. It is mathematically unlikely that this will happen in large ones.

The church is sadly still confused about what it means to be a man or a woman. While secular society talks about sexuality in terms of liberation, many in the church define manhood and womanhood in terms of reductive roles that rob us of the dignity of personhood, created in the image of God. In her poetic, theologically contemplative style, Aimee Byrd invites you to enter the rich treasure trove of the Song of Songs as its lyrics reveal how our very bodies are visible signs that tell us something about our God.

Explore and understand the key ideas and movements in anthropology—the study of human societies and cultures and how they work.

After receiving a doctorate in medicine, Le Bon travelled in Europe, North Africa, and Asia and wrote several books on anthropology and archaeology. His interests later shifted to natural science and social psychology. Gustave Le Bon is best known for his seminal work Crowd Psychology where he describes the psychological effects in various group settings. In Psychology of Peoples written in 1894 he utilizes his anthropological knowledge and cross-references it with social psychology.

A study into the customs and practices of indigenous peoples in the Americas, Montaigne delves into the concept of ‘civilisation’, contrasting the behaviour of so-called ‘barbarians’ with Western society. He challenges the idea that European values are superior, understanding the practices of the Tupinambá people and arguing that the horrors inflicted by the soldiers of Portugal on their enemies at the time are – in many ways – far worse. It remains a persuasive and compelling argument for cultural relativism. This audiobook edition is expertly narrated by Malk Williams.

Algumas mulheres conheceram o céu, outras o inferno; umas foram enaltecidas, santificadas, outras demonizadas; mas todas tocaram as profundezas do próprio ser, chegaram ao limite de sua condição e de seu tempo e se eternizaram na história. Ao tomar contato com a história e os dilemas vividos por figuras como Afrodite, Cinderela, Simone de Beauvoir e Virginia Woolf, a autora nos guia em uma viagem de resgate da essência perdida ao ressignificar o papel feminino no mundo.

Anthropologists have invariably engaged in their discipline as a form of redemption, whether to escape from social restriction, nourish their souls, reform their home polities, or vindicate "the natives". Redeeming Anthropology explores how in pursuit of a secular science sired by the Enlightenment, adherents to a "faith in mankind" have vacillated between rejecting and embracing theology, albeit in concealed and contradictory ways.

Finding from my own personal experience how troublesome it is to hunt through piles of dusty old volumes, I have decided to make a small selection of these papers which I consider are not only rare and very interesting, but which also give an insight into the varied activities and achievements of Burton’s crowded life. It will, I think, be realized that such a volume as this will not be superfluous, for, apart from saving people an enormous amount of trouble, it will give them further insight into the life-work of one of the greatest men of the Victorian era.

We humans have a complicated relationship with the dark. We fear it, and make great efforts to blot it out. But we also long for it, especially if we live in cities, or remember the starry skies of our childhoods. Darkness opens us up to risk, delight and transformation. Is it possible to prise it free of its negative associations, which are as old as human thought itself? Drawing on memory and imagination, history and ecology, literature and myth, Night Vision is an expansive, thrilling journey into the true dark.

In the summer of 1579, Francis Drake and all those aboard the Golden Hind were in peril. The ship was leaking and they were in search of a protected beach to careen the ship to make repairs. They searched the coast and made landfall in what they called a "Fair and Good Bay", generally thought to be in California. They stacked the treasure they had recently captured from the Spanish onto on this sandy shore, repaired the ship, explored the country, and after a number of weeks, they set sail for home.