Examines the nature and significance of myths and their impact on ancient civilizations

"In four brief chapters," writes Clifford Geertz in his preface, "I have attempted both to lay out a general framework for the comparative analysis of religion and to apply it to a study of the development of a supposedly single creed, Islam, in two...

From the world-leading expert on the Maya, a monumental history of a flourishing civilization across three millenniaThe Four Heavens brings to life the cultural and visual splendor of the ancient Maya, drawing on the oldest indigenous texts of the...

The consequences of U.S. border policies through the experiences of Honduran migrants.   Hondurans have been at the heart of some of the most visible migration phenomena in the last few years, as well as the direct target of anti-immigrant rhetoric and...

As Lévi-Strauss freely explores the mythologies of the Americas, with occasional incursions into European and Japanese folklore, tales of sloths and squirrels interweave with discussions of Freud, Saussure, "signification," and plays by Sophocles and...

“Unlike advocates who promote one-cause-fits-all explanations for human behavior, Fuentes appreciates the array of influences that make us human. This book is guaranteed to give the reader a more nuanced view of who we are, and why we do what we do...

In the tradition of Hampton Sides and Simon Winchester comes a vital and timely work of historical adventure and reclamation by British archeological scholar Mike Pitts--a book that rewrites the popular yet flawed history of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and...

Christianity figured prominently in the imperial and colonial exploitation and dispossession of indigenous peoples worldwide, yet many indigenous people embrace Christian faith as part of their cultural and ethnic identities.A Chosen People, a Promised...

Book by Metcalf, Peter

Breaks open the privilege and promise of food justice to envision a radical liberatory future. Food justice activists have worked to increase access to healthy food in low-income communities of color across the United States. Yet despite their best...

In Shapeshifters Aimee Meredith Cox explores how young Black women in a Detroit homeless shelter contest stereotypes, critique their status as partial citizens, and negotiate poverty, racism, and gender violence to create and imagine lives for themselves...

It’s August 2015. After twenty-five years of archaeological research in a secluded cave overlooking the Rhône Valley in southern France, Ludovic Slimak uncovers the remains of a Neanderthal, frozen in time – a discovery that casts fresh light on a...

For nearly two thousand years, Hebrew belonged to the realm of the sacred. A written liturgical language used primarily by rabbis and scholars, it was not spoken in everyday contexts. A revival process in the late nineteenth century brought Hebrew back...

In essays covering everything from art and common sense to charisma and constructions of the self, the eminent cultural anthropologist and author of The Interpretation of Cultures deepens our understanding of human societies through the intimacies of...

Earth Beings is the fruit of Marisol de la Cadena's decade-long conversations with Mariano and Nazario Turpo, father and son, runakuna or Quechua people. Concerned with the mutual entanglements of indigenous and nonindigenous worlds, and the partial...

An original study of empire creation and its consequences, from ancient through early modern timesThe world’s first great empires established by the ancient Persians, Chinese, and Romans are well known, but not the empires that emerged on their margins...

Drawn from more than two decades of pathbreaking writing, the iconic and bestselling David Graeber's most important essays and interviews."The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make...