Showing titles in Anthropology

Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.

This classic on shamanism pioneered the modern shamanic renaissance. It is the foremost resource and reference on shamanism. Now, with a new introduction and a guide to current resources, anthropologist Michael Harner provides the definitive handbook on practical shamanism–what it is, where it came from, how you can participate.

The day that turns a life upside down usually starts like any other, but what happens the day after? Dual Walkley Award-winner Leigh Sales investigates how ordinary people endure the unthinkable. As a journalist, Leigh Sales often encounters people experiencing the worst moments of their lives...

From New York Times bestselling author, feminist pioneer, and cultural icon bell hooks, an evergreen treatise on how patriarchy and toxic masculinity hurts us all. Feminist writing did not tell us about the deep inner misery of men. Everyone needs to love and be loved—including men. But to...

From the bestselling author of The Bomber Mafia, learn what sets high achievers apart—from Bill Gates to the Beatles—in this seminal work from "a singular talent" (New York Times Book Review). In this stunning book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of...

With eloquent simplicity, one of the world's last Native American medicine men demonstrates how traditional tribal wisdom can help us maintain spiritual and physical health in today's world.

Journalist and author Oliver Burkeman is well-known for his long-running Guardian column, 'How to Change Your Life', and has written three best-selling books on happiness, productivity and time management. In this radio collection, he looks at four central ills of modernity—busyness, anger, the insistence on positivity and the decline of nuance. Talking to a range of experts, he discovers how these problems became so widespread, and how we can go about tackling them.

Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals?

This collection of writings by Mark Fisher, author of the acclaimed Capitalist Realism, argues that we are haunted by futures that failed to happen. Fisher searches for the traces of these lost futures in the work of David Peace, John Le Carré, Christopher Nolan, Joy Division, Burial, and many others.

Tras el convencimiento falaz de que sobran seres humanos en el planeta, se extiende amenazante una ideología inducida que considera que la vida de una mascota es más valiosa que la de personas que disienten, bebés no nacidos, o ancianos enfermos. Nace así una peligrosa nueva religión laica apocalíptica basada en la ira, pero disfrazada de amor por la naturaleza, el planeta y el clima. En estas páginas argumenta, con un enfoque original y aportando datos asombrosos: la diferencia entre dos perspectivas opuestas; el lobo de Dios -lupus dei- y el dios Lobo -lupus deus.

La filosofía y el pensamiento espiritual andalusí florecieron en nuestra tierra durante más de siete siglos. Un periodo en el que en Al Ándalus convivieron tres culturas diferentes (musulmana, cristiana y judía), cada una de ellas con su propia visión del mundo y del espíritu.

Llegar a pisar la Luna, alcanzar el Polo Sur, ser capaces de captar y reproducir la voz o poder mandar un correo electrónico desde Barcelona hasta un bar remoto en la selva de Borneo en pocos segundos son logros de la humanidad que tienen un denominador común: la voluntad del Homo sapiens para cruzar fronteras que a muchos congéneres les habían parecido infranqueables. La idea de frontera implica que hay un más allá de ella; también sugiere una diferencia entre lo conocido y lo ignoto, entre la seguridad de lo cierto y el miedo de la incertidumbre.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AN INDIE BESTSELLER “One of the great thinkers of our generation . . . I feel fresher and smarter and happier for sitting down with her.”—Jameela Jamil, iWeigh Podcast The co-host of the Maintenance Phase podcast and creator of Your Fat Friend equips you with...

Through vivid stories studded with insights, award-winning author Tamim Ansary tells the story of how humans invented history, from the Stone Age to the Virtual Age. Fifty thousand years ago, we roamed the world as countless autonomous bands of hunter-gatherers, each one telling itself a story...

Geneticists like David Reich have made astounding advances in the field of genomics, which is proving to be as important as archaeology, linguistics, and written records as a means to understand our ancestry. In Who We Are and How We Got Here, Reich allows listeners to discover how the human genome provides not only all the information a human embryo needs to develop but also the hidden story of our species.

This fascinating audiobook is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time.

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.

A classic of Japanese history, this audiobook is the preeminent work on the history of Japan. Newly revised and updated, A History of Japan is a single-volume complete history of the nation of Japan. Starting in ancient Japan during its early pre-history period, A History of Japan covers every important aspect of history and culture through feudal Japan to the post-Cold War period and collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s. Recent findings shed additional light on the origins of Japanese civilization and the birth of Japanese culture.

For over 40 years, Carlos Castaneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan has inspired audiences to expand their world view beyond traditional Western forms. Originally published as Castaneda’s master’s thesis in anthropology, Teachings documents Castaneda’s supposed apprenticeship with a Yaqui Indian sorcerer, don Juan Matus. Dividing the work into two sections, Castaneda begins by describing don Juan’s philosophies, then continues with his own reflections.

Authoritative and immediate, this is the classic account of the most powerful of the American Indian tribes. T. R. Fehrenbach traces the Comanches' rise to power, from their prehistoric origins to their domination of the high plains for more than a century until their demise in the face of Anglo-American expansion.