Explore and understand the key ideas and movements in anthropology--the study of human societies and cultures and how they work. What does it mean to be human? Why do we have rituals? How do family structures differ around the world, and why? The...

A new paradigm that integrates human and nonhuman communication and cultureAre language and culture uniquely human, justifying an exceptionalism that sets people apart from the rest of nature? New discoveries in the biological sciences have challenged...

From the acclaimed author of 1177 B.C., a spellbinding account of the archaeological find that opened a window onto the vibrant diplomatic world of the ancient Near EastIn 1887, an Egyptian woman made an astonishing discovery among the ruins of the...

From the author of the international bestseller Schott's Original Miscellany comes a visually rich book that breaks down the colorful language and systems of signs that make up the vocabulary of our world. Here is an obsessive and fascinating look at...

The first book to explore from an archaeological perspective the incredible and improbable history of our relationship with cats, from fearsome foe to purring pet. Feared, revered and respected, cats have left an indelible pawprint on the histories and...

WINNER OF THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTIONA TIME 10 Best Nonfiction Book of 2024 • An NPR Book We Love 2024 • A New York Times Notable Book of 2024 • A Boston Globe Best Book of 2024“A work of extraordinary reportage and compassion...[it] will...

In the 1100s most Pueblo peoples lived in small, dispersed settlements and moved frequently, but by the mid-1400s they had aggregated into large villages. The majority of these villages were still occupied at Spanish contact and conquest, by which time...

Perpetrators of mass violence are commonly regarded as evil. Their violent nature is believed to make them commit heinous crimes as members of state agencies, insurgencies, terrorist organizations, or racist and supremacist groups. Upon close...

French colonization dismantled Algerian names. Under the occupation that began in 1830, not only were Algerian towns and streets renamed in honor of French figures, but personal names were forced to follow French conventions and norms. Colonial...

Fear of a Dead White Planet asks: How does one study when the planet is on fire? The More Worlds Collective challenges the contemporary rush to planetary technofixes for environmental emergency. Instead, it tracks how such planetary-science frames are...

In this seminal, founding work of political anthropology, Pierre Clastres takes on some of the most abiding and essential questions of human civilization: What is power? What is society? How, among all the possible modes of political organization, did we...

Thucydides' classic work on the history of the Peloponnesian War is the root of Western conceptions of history—including the idea that Western history is the foundation of everyone else's. Here, Marshall Sahlins takes on Thucydides and the conceptions of...

Concerned with the origins of capitalism and the conditions that accompanied its birth, this work argues that capitalism is more than an economic system: it is a culture that affects not just the material but also the social, familial and even spiritual...

In considering how anthropologists have chosen to look at and write about politics, Joan Vincent contends that the anthropological study of politics is itself a historical process. Intended not only as a representation but also as a reinterpretation, her...

Starting with the premise that Europe was made by its imperial projects as much as colonial encounters were shaped by events and conflicts in Europe, the contributors to Tensions of Empire investigate metropolitan-colonial relationships from a new...

'This is scholarship at its very best. A brilliant book in every respect' Barry Cunliffe A lifetime's study brings an authoritative perspective to one of the great unknowns in human history - the origin and language of the Indo-Europeans. Today the...

"With a language disappearing every two weeks and neologisms springing up almost daily, understanding the origins and currency of language has never seemed more relevant. In this charming volume, expert linguist David Crystal proves why the story of...