Product Description: Drawing from ethnographic examples found throughout the world, this text offers a general introduction to what anthropologists know or think about religion, how they have studied it, and how they interpret or explain it since the late 19th century...read more

Verrier Elwin (1902-1964) was unquestionably the most colorful and influential non-official Englishman to live and work in twentieth-century India. A prolific writer, Elwin's ethnographic studies and popular works on India's tribal customs, art, myth and folklore continue to generate controversy. Described by his contemporaries as a cross between Albert Schweitzer and Paul Gauguin, Elwin was a man of contradictions, at times taking on the role of evangelist, social worker, political activist, poet, government worker, and more. He rubbed elbows with the elite of both Britain and India, yet found himself equally at home among the impoverished and destitute. Intensely political, the Oxford-trained scholar tirelessly defended the rights of the indigenous and, despite the deep religious influences of St. Francis and Mahatma Gandhi on his early career, staunchly opposed Hindu and Christian puritans in the debate over the future of India's tribals. Although he was ordained as an Anglican priest, Elwin was married twice to tribal women and enthusiastically (and publicly) extolled the tribals' practice of free sex. Later, as prime minister Nehru's friend and advisor in independent India, his compelling defense of tribal hedonism made him at once hugely influential, extremely controversial, and the polemical focal point of heated discussions on tribal policy and economic development. Savaging the Civilized is both biography and history, an exploration through Elwin's life of some of the great debates of the twentieth century: the future of development, cultural assimilation versus cultural difference, the political practice of postcolonial as opposed to colonial governments, and the moral practice of writers and intellectuals.

This volume of essays dedicated to Robert McCormick Adams reflects both the breadth of his research and the select themes upon which he focused his attention. These essays written by his students and disciples focus on issues in Near Eastern archaeology but range as far afield as the Indus Valley and Mesoamerica. They are also concentrate on aspects of early complex society, but some refer back to the late Neolithic and others forward to Islamic times. The key foci of Adams' work are reflected in this collection: ecology, frontiers, urbanism, trade and technology are all explored. Yet in spite of the breadth of the scope of this volume, the various intellectual threads pioneered by Adams serve to tie the volume together. These include the use of multiple lines of evidence to attack problems, the use of a comparative approach - including the use of ethnographic analogy-as a means of understanding the development of early states, the importance of the continuum of settlement between city dwellers, farmers, marsh dwellers and pastoralists, and an overall appreciation of cultural ecology.

Product Description: Based on archival material from the cities of Genoa, Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples, as well as on published sources, such as travel journals, and artistic representations, this volume presents an original view of the culture of early modern Italy...read more

Writing with great wit and insight, the award-winning author of A Scientific Romance interrogates the notion of progress in the twentieth century, exploring the price paid for all of the wonders of modern technology and concluding that a new Dark Age may be on the horizon. Original.

Essays composed over a period of thirty years illuminate Teilhard's views of human progress and unity. Bibliogs

Product Description: 1931. Contents: Social Relations Among Animals; Motherhood and Human Origins; The Rule of Exogamy; Matrilocal Marriage; The Maternal Clan; Primitive Economic Conditions; The Position of Women in Matriarchal Societies; Primitive Sex Relations; Patriarchal Marriage; Patriarchal Morality; and The Matriarchal Phase in Historical Civilization...read more

Product Description: First published in 1980, this book provides an overview of E. E. Evans-Pritchard's approach to anthropology. His seminal works on the Azande and the Nuer had an immense impact on the field in Britain. He wrote these works in his thirties and forties, after which time he became chair of anthropology at Oxford...read more

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Product Description: Mary Douglas is a central figure within British social anthropology. Studying under Evans-Pritchard at Oxford immediately after the second world war, she formed part of the group of anthropologists who established social anthropology's standing in the world of scholarship...read more

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Product Description: The Indian Man examines the life of James Mooney (1861–1921), the son of poor Irish immigrants who became a champion of Native peoples and one of the most influential anthropology fieldworkers of all time. As a staff member of the Smithsonian Institution for over three decades, Mooney conducted fieldwork and gathered invaluable information on rapidly changing Native American cultures across the continent...read more