Showing results for "tim" in Anthropology

Originally drawn to Yaqui Indian spiritual leader don Juan Matus for his knowledge of mind-altering plants, best-selling author Carlos Castaneda soon immersed himself in the sorcerer's magical world entirely. Ten years after his first encounter with the shaman, Castaneda examines his field notes and comes to understand what don Juan knew all along - that these plants are merely a means to understanding the alternative realities that one cannot fully embrace on one's own.  

Why have societies all across the world feared witchcraft? This book delves deeply into its context, beliefs, and origins in Europe's history. The witch came to prominence - and often a painful death - in early modern Europe, yet her origins are much more geographically diverse and historically deep. In this landmark book, Ronald Hutton traces witchcraft from the ancient world to the early modern state.

Soon after Billy Griffiths joins his first archaeological dig as camp manager and cook, he is hooked. Equipped with a historian’s inquiring mind, he embarks on a journey through time, seeking to understand the extraordinary deep history of the Australian continent. Deep Time Dreaming is the passionate product of that journey. It investigates a twin revolution: the reassertion of Aboriginal identity in the second half of the 20th century and the uncovering of the traces of ancient Australia.

Our daily experience, dominated by the corporate clock that so many of us contort ourselves to fit inside, is destroying us. It wasn't built for people, it was built for profit. This is a book that tears open the seams of reality as we know it-the way we experience time itself-and rearranges it, reimagining a world not centered around work, the office clock, or the profit motive. Explaining how we got to the point where time became money, Odell offers us new models to live by that make a more humane, more hopeful way of living seem possible.

Fifty years ago, neuroscientists thought that a mature brain was fixed like a fly in amber, unable to change. Today, we know that our brains and nervous systems change throughout our lifetimes. This concept of neuroplasticity has captured the imagination of a public eager for self-improvement - and has inspired countless Internet entrepreneurs who peddle dubious "brain training" games and apps. In this book, Moheb Costandi offers a concise and engaging overview of neuroplasticity for the general listener.

This audiobook narrated by Katherine Fenton gives a sweeping account of male nurturing, explaining how and why men are biologically transformed when they care for babies.

Over thousands of years, humans have developed mechanisms to help us live together in ever-larger social groups. We developed a set of 'moral emotions' such as empathy, guilt and outrage, as well as a tendency to favour people in our in-groups and a propensity to punish perceived wrongdoers. Our culture also evolved, giving us powerful tools like religion and politics that could expand community sizes and maintain moral order. While these mechanisms served our ancestors well, though, our evolved sense of right and wrong is out of step with the modern world.

How four tools enabled humanity to control its destiny What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Listeners of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution - a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones - caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time.

Sex, Time, and Power offers a tantalizing answer to an age-old question: Why did big-brained Homo sapiens suddenly emerge some 150,000 years ago? The key, according to Shlain, is female sexuality. Drawing on an awesome breadth of research, he shows how, long ago, the narrowness of the newly bipedal human female's pelvis and the increasing size of infants' heads precipitated a crisis for the species. Natural selection allowed for reconfiguration of hormonal cycles, entraining women with the periodicity of the moon - and imbuing women with the concept of time.

The relationship between man and horse on the Eurasian steppe gave rise to a succession of rich nomadic cultures. Among them were the Mongols of the 13th century - a small tribe, which, under the charismatic leadership of Genghis Khan, created the largest contiguous land empire in history. Inspired by the extraordinary life nomads still lead today, Tim Cope embarked on a journey that hadn’t been successfully completed since those times: to travel on horseback across the entire length of the Eurasian steppe.

Stephen Jenkinson explores the great paradox of elderhood in North America: how we are awash in the aged and yet somehow lacking in wisdom; how we relegate senior citizens to the corner of the house while simultaneously heralding them as sage elders simply by virtue of their age. Our own unreconciled relationship with what it means to be an elder has yielded a culture nearly bereft of them. Taking on the sacred cow of the family, Jenkinson argues that elderhood is a function rather than an identity.

When you see your nation's flag fluttering in the breeze, what do you feel? For thousands of years flags have represented our hopes and dreams. We wave them. Burn them. March under their colours. And still, in the 21st century, we die for them. Flags fly at the UN, on the Arab street, from front porches in Texas. They represent the politics of high power as well as the politics of the mob.

A funny, joyful, frank and inspiring audiobook about embracing both feminism and our imperfections, from the creator of the hit comedy podcast, Deborah Frances-White. From inclusion to the secret power of rom coms, from effective activism to what poker can tell us about gender, Deborah Frances-White explores what it means to be a 21st-century feminist and encourages us to make the world better for all women.

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.

Why would someone who cares so deeply about ecological change want to stop talking about it now? At Work in the Ruins is the book that grew out of Dougald’s attempt to answer that question. He delves deeply into what he discovered during the globally shared isolating Covid moment, why the virus and the measures taken against it drove so many of us to despair, and how we can re-find our bearings if the pandemic is not the big event that changes everything but simply one in a chain of emergencies that are bringing about the end of the world as we knew it.

Though increasing numbers of people know that eating meat is detrimental to our planet’s health, many still can’t be convinced to give up eating meat. But how can we change behavior when common arguments and information aren’t working? Acclaimed anthropologist Roanne Van Voorst changes the dialogue. In Once Upon a Time We Ate Animals, she shifts the focus from the present looking forward to the future looking back - imagining a world in which most no longer use animals for food, clothing, or other items. 

Everyone knows how babies are made, but scientists are only just beginning to understand the making of a mother. Mom Genes reveals the hard science behind our tenderest maternal impulses, tackling questions such as why mothers are destined to mimic their own moms (or not), how maternal aggression makes females the world’s most formidable creatures, and how a crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic can make or break a mom.

Humans now live longer and better than ever before, and we are the most populous big animal on earth. Meanwhile, our closest living relatives, the now-endangered chimpanzees, continue to live as they have for millions of years. We are not like the other animals, yet we evolved through the same process. What are we, then? And now we have remade the world, what are we becoming? Setting out to answer this question, Gaia Vince tells a remarkable evolution story about us. 

Empathy is in short supply these days—and it’s hurting all of us. But all is not lost. Just as physical workouts strengthen your body, there are ways to build up your empathy as well. In Tell Me More About That, brand strategist and thought leader Rob Volpe draws on his years of conducting thousands of in-home interviews with everyday people to illustrate the 5 Steps to Empathy—the actions you can take to build a strong and reflexive empathy muscle. With empathy, we can all learn and understand more than we ever imagined possible. Let the training begin.

Over several seasons, Kassabova spends time with the people of this magical region. She meets women and men who work in a long lineage of foragers, healers and mystics. She learns about wild plants and the ancient practice of herbalism, and experiences a symbiotic system where nature and culture have blended for thousands of years. Through her captivating encounters we come to feel the devastating weight of the ecological and cultural disinheritance that the people of this valley have suffered. Yet, in her search for elixir, she also finds reasons for hope.