Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Cultural    2. Autonomy    3. Citizenship    4. Globalization    5. History & Theory - General    6. International Relations - General    7. Political Freedom & Security - Civil Rights    8. Politics / Current Events    9. Social Science    10. Sociology    11. State, The    12. Anthropology/Ethnography    13. Cultural Studies    14. Ethnography    15. SOCIAL THOERY    16. Social theory   

Reviews (1)

our surroundings
this is a great book if you would like to know how the city and others cities have changed .the many changes you will learn about is transportation, the economy, population and anything else ther is to dowith the world changes. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Cities and towns    2. Developing countries    3. Social Science    4. Sociology    5. Sociology - Urban    6. United States    7. Urbanization    8. Social Science / Sociology / Urban    9. Social groups & communities   

Reviews (4)

The starting point
A classic in many ways, the Division of Labor is a great starting point for sociology - not because it's terribly sexy or interesting or even correct, but because it begins to lay out what sociology can do.

A founding block of Sociological Theory
... The Halls translation is quite a good one. If we examine the Halls text and compare it to the "revisions" that the reviewer has posed, we find thatthe differences are not merely aesthetic, they are substantive. They changethe meaning of the sentence, and therefore the nature and meaning ofDurkheim's argument. Comment
...The Coser edition of THE DIVISION OF LABOUR is commonly regarded as the best english translation edition. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Cultural    2. Business & Economics    3. Economics - General    4. History Of Economic Thought    5. Social Organization    6. Sociology    7. Sociology - General    8. Social Science / Sociology / General    9. Work & labour   

Reviews (1)

new approach to history of books and place in the culture
St. Clair's voluminous book is important in the inter-related fields of publishing history, history of the book, and history of reading on two grounds--its methodology and its detailed data. St. Clair's commentaries are informative, and his deductions will likely be regarded as bases for further studies. But it is the methodology and the unprecedented details on book publishing and many individual titles contained in 13 appendices of more than 250 pages which will especially draw the attention of many readers, historians, professors, and others in this area. For the appendices somewhat schematically indicate the methodology and present the data for the deductions. The author's painstaking efforts and publisher's equally meticulous efforts to accurately record, classify, and arrange the novel data in smaller type with footnotes account for the high price of the book.
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Subjects:  1. Book industries and trade    2. Books & Reading    3. Books and reading    4. English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh    5. History    6. Literary Criticism    7. Literature - Classics / Criticism    8. Literature and society    9. Social aspects    10. Anthropology    11. British Isles    12. Language Arts & Disciplines / Publishing    13. Literary studies: general    14. c 1800 to c 1900   

Reviews (7)

Excellent Primer
Excellent preliminary introduction to the thought of French philosopher Michel Foucault, who was situated at the forefront of French post-modernity and post-structuralism during the 1960's, grouped with other intellectuals such as Derrida, Lacan, Althusser, and Delueze.
Foucault 101 - don't stop your education here.
Power/Knowledge is an excellent introduction to and distillation of the thought of Michel Foucault. It's much more functional than The Foucault Reader, which offers a few key essays ("What Is Enlightenment?", "Nietzsche, Genealogy, and History", etc.) mixed with book excerpts, and may be more gentle to the first-time reader than diving into one of Foucault's full-length works.
untitled
I don't know how to rate most of Foucault's work because quite frankly I don't understand most of it.I read some of his primary material and didn't get it.I read some secondary material and I still didn't completely get it.A friend then introduced me to some philosophy comic books.He had the whole series including Hegel, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard to name a few.I now understand the objective and nature of his works yet still can't grasp the nuance of it.Perhaps I'm grasping for greater meaning that doesn't exist, but chances are that I'm just too dumb.Read more

Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Cultural    2. General    3. History & Surveys - Modern    4. History - General History    5. Philosophy    6. Power (Social sciences)    7. Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural    8. Sociology & social issues   

Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Physical    2. Archaeology / Anthropology    3. Europe - Great Britain - General    4. Life Sciences - Genetics & Genomics    5. Science    6. Science/Mathematics    7. Genealogy    8. Genetics (non-medical)    9. Ireland    10. Science / Genetics    11. United Kingdom, Great Britain   

Reviews (1)

Masterful Essays in Symbolic Anthropology
The role of culture in human societies is explored through a combination of empirical research and the nimble mind and imaginative powers of the late Victor Turner. This collection will prove especially useful to students of comparative religion, social/cultural anthropology, literature, performance, and the visual arts. Turner's essays are far from dry. They thrill with their ability to combine close observations of the "exotic" beliefs of non-Western peoples and cutting edge insights into more familiar cultural dimensions of everyday life in western Europe and the United States.
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Subjects:  1. Addresses, essays, lectures    2. Ethnic & Tribal    3. General    4. Metaphor    5. Rites and ceremonies    6. Sociology    7. Symbolism    8. Anthropology   

Reviews (2)

integrated brain exercise
While many philosophical texts can lay claim to a good cerebral work-out Massumi makes sure you don't forget that the body and sensation are very much part of this process. As he says "There is no thought that is not accompanied by a physical sensation of effort of agitation, (if only a knitting of the brows, a pursing of the lips, or a quickening of the heartbeat). This sensation, which may be muscular,...tactile, or visceral is backgrounded. This doesn't mean it disappears into the background. It means that it appears as the background against which the conscious thought stands out: its felt environment." These musings on the sensations and functioning of the body are not without larger consequence. Massumi elequently re-introduces movement, dynamism into the static and spatially orientated positional grid that is the basis of much analysis.

Massumi is great
This is one of the best, most thought-provoking books I own. The essay on Reagan and the virtual is fascinating, as is the essay on the color blue.The guy blows me away.He doesn't just slavishly repeat Deleuzo-Guattarianisms like you might expect.He takes from them and then participates in the creativity that they inspire.I particularly like the way that he uses such real things to discuss the "philosophical."Indeed, Massumi does express a higher empiricism (one unencumbered by prefabricated categories and other forms of abstraction). ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Affect (Psychology)    2. Anthropology - Cultural    3. General    4. Mind & Body    5. Movement (Philosophy)    6. Philosophy    7. Senses and sensation    8. Social Science    9. Sociology    10. Cultural studies    11. Topics in philosophy   

Reviews (1)

Outstanding anthropological essays
James Clifford's book considers how anthropology can exist in these postmodern times. Considering such phenomena as a museum exhibit which displays "primitive artefacts" next to contemporaneous"modern art pieces," Clifford discusses the way"Western" culture privileges its own culture at the expense ofother cultures, clearly showing the ways assumptions of the definition ofculture defines this privilege. Clifford's essay on the Mashpees on CapeCod offers a striking example of directions in which anthropology can moveto redesign its own project without privileging itself. A well-written,erudite text. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the workings ofcontemporary society. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Anthropology - Cultural    3. Archaeology / Anthropology    4. Ethnology    5. History    6. Philosophy    7. Social Science    8. Sociology    9. Cultural studies    10. Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural   

Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Cultural    2. Archaeology / Anthropology    3. Cultural And Social Anthropology    4. Ethnic Studies - General    5. Ethnology    6. Social Science    7. Sociology    8. Social & cultural anthropology    9. Social Science / Anthropology / General   

Reviews (3)

Good biology, Bad philosophy
I read this entire book, and actually found it interesting -- but not for the reason it was written.The book is a very good primer, I thought, on human biological evolution.The author's theories on "language" and "mind", however, were not very helpful, often trite, and at times inane.
Thought provoking trip from monkey calls to tribal song to speech
Starts slow, but soon zooms along. Before you know it, you're in the midst of a fascinating story about monkey calls, baby babbling, opera and rock, and the weird, wired harmonies that cascade through the human nervous system when people engage in speech and song.Then, halfway through the book, using the information of the first half as a lens to bring the second half into focus, the author leads you on a trip from the darkest depths of hominid prehistory to the dawn of homo sapien culture, developing, as he goes, a theory about the origins of oral communication and music.The wonder of the book is not the theory, but the author's protean curiosity and delightful talent for explanation and synthesis. He weaves together strands of thought from all sorts of different disciplines to create an argument so lively and thought provoking that it doesn't matter if it's right.You come away full of ideas that seem to apply to almost everything you see.The book is a lovely, multi-layered intellectual tune, which makes you hummmm with thought as you turn each page.

From "Hmmmm" to "Hmmmmm"
Fear not, dear reader.I'm not making the sounds of indecision.Nor have I forgotten the words to my local national anthem.Instead, those sets of letters are acronyms.Steven Mithen uses them to typify the foundations of our ability to communicate in our distant past.The letters stand for "Holistic, "multi-modal", "manipulative", and "musical".With the addition of "mimetic", he uses the collective phrase to explain why "music" in this broadly defined sense, preceded the development of language and grammar in our species.He also explains the "how" of this phenomenon, which is what gives this book its real value.
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Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Cultural    2. Anthropology - General    3. Archaeology    4. History & Criticism - General    5. Human evolution    6. Life Sciences - Evolution    7. Life Sciences - Evolution - Human    8. Music    9. Origin    10. Psychological aspects    11. Science    12. Science/Mathematics    13. Anthropology    14. Science / Evolution   

Reviews (4)

Informative, but somewhat misguided
The basic thesis of all essays in "The Invention of Tradition" is that many of the mass, public traditions in various societies of the world (from Scottish kilts to the very concept of tribes in Africa) are well-crafted ("invented") constructs of the 18th/19th centuries, and are not as ancient or immemorial as they are generally believed to be. Parenthetically, the very expression "invention of tradition" is somewhat redundant, since all traditions, as products of human behavior and human imagination rather than the result of natural forces, are invented in one way or another. All of the essays in the book show how this is so, providing an excellent analysis of the origins of these traditions. As such they are very valuable contributions to contemporary social/political history. However, although the tone of the book is that such "invented traditions" were frequently almost imposed and/or used as instruments of political manipulation, it can't be denied that they also very often gave expression to very real feelings - as editor Hobsbawm concedes in his concluding essay. Thus, rather than demonstrating some sort of arbitrary "invention" and manipulation, Prys Morgan's chapter on the Welsh also shows how previous traditions in Wales were revived, reformulated and continuously adapted from the late seventeenth century on to meet various political, social and cultural challenges, thus making the process of invention seem quite "natural." On the other hand, Terence Ranger's essay on Africa is almost disturbing in that it seems to imply that almost every aspect of African politics and society today were bequethed by the continent's former European colonial masters. Hugh Trevor-Roper's chapter on Scotland is useful in that it pinpoints the exact origins of the "highland tradition" and all outer, visual identity markers used by the Scots, but the overall implication seems to be that now that the sham is revealed, the Scots should discard their kilts and bagpipes in shame. It would have been more useful if he had provided an explanation of why Scottish patriots, and others, so eagerly accepted these "invented traditions," and why they are so deeply entrenched and stronger than ever today. This goes for the entire book: it's main value may be in (unitentionally) showing how all traditions are in fact invented in one way or another, and that they become traditions because, at least at the time of their inception, they serve strongly felt political, social, cultural or even economic needs.

The truth behind the tartans!
Hugh Trevor-Roper's contribution to this book is priceless.In his chapter "Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of Scotland", he details for the reader where the supposedly "ancient" costume of Scotland came from.The kilt was invented by an English Quaker about 1726 to allow his Highland workmen to more easily move while smelting the iron ore he was extracting.The kilt was thus an expression of the Industrial Revolution rather than an ancient freedom of the heather. The real stuff of legend
The principle argumentative thread running through each of this book's essays is that the traditions Europeans hold dear about their respective cultures date back merely to the turn of the 20th century.Far fromlegendarily old, things like Scottish tartans and the English monarchical love of pomp and circumstance date back only to the Victorian era.More tothe point, many traditions aren't even native to the land which celebratesthem.Tartans, the book concludes, are actually northern English ideas,and the "British" love of pageantry comes more from India than fromanything deeply rooted in the gardens of the House of Windsor.Read more

Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Cultural    2. Archaeology / Anthropology    3. Cultural And Social Anthropology    4. Customs & Traditions    5. Folklore    6. History    7. History: World    8. Manners and customs    9. Origin    10. Reference    11. Rites and ceremonies    12. Social Institutions    13. World - General    14. Anthropology    15. History / World    16. Sociology    17. World history   

Reviews (2)

In the Sumptuous Time of Autumn
Stuart L. Schneider's dynamic Halloween In America: A Collector's Guide With Prices spectacularly captures the spirit of the classic years of the American Halloween tradition: the period from the turn of the century through the end of the nineteen-fifties. Though the book includes more recent material, Schneider wisely focuses on what he recognizes to be the holiday's glory days in this country, when its spirit hadn't moved too far from its agricultural roots and American culture was predominantly positive, forward-looking, and uncynical--and its Halloween decorations charming and vividly imaginative. For the Halloween lover
This is much more than a book for collectors of Halloween.This is the best book on the subject. I've read all the others and this is the bible of Halloween. If you have only one book on Halloween, this has to be the one. It brings back childhood. This book is really a look at what Halloweenmeans. Ghosts and goblins, fall colors, adventure and childhood fears. I'veread mine over and over and over again. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Americana    2. Antiques & Collectibles    3. Antiques / Collectibles    4. Antiques/Collectibles    5. Catalogs    6. Collectibles    7. General    8. Halloween    9. Holidays (non religious)    10. United States    11. Antiques & Collectables    12. Customs    13. USA   

Reviews (11)

A masterpiece of economic history that is as relevant as ever sixty years on
Although this book was published in 1944, the same year as Hayek's THE ROAD TO SERFDOM, it remains as relevant as ever.Some say that it is dated and it is true that many of the historical references are not the ones that would spring to mind today, but the critique of the myth of the self-regulating free market remains as relevant and to-the-point as ever.One of the main targets of his book was the Vienna school of economics, the central figures of which were Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek.What Polanyi does is help one to see how hopelessly naïve and ahistorical many of their central assumptions are.Though one might question some of the details of Polanyi's thesis, especially regarding the gold standard the causes of the two world wars, he makes two incredibly powerful arguments about the myth of the self-regulating market to which proponents of that theory have offered no convincing reply.More of this is a second.
Absolutely Brilliant
Polanyi's The Great Transformation is truly a masterpiece of historical analysis and social theory. Polanyi deftly uses his extensive knowledge of economic history, anthropology, and political theory to demonstrate the failure of "market society" and the myopia of those who believe that the "free" market is the answer to all social ills. He's at his best when he combines his historical analysis of 18th and 19th century capitalism -- an experiment with a free market economy that resulted in the Great Depression and world war -- with anthropological data showing that there is no innate human propensity to engage in trade or accumulate wealth at the expense of others. Conservatives and libertarians hate this book because it thoroughly undermines their claims that markets are natural, spontaneous, and reflect the uncoerced interaction of free agents; the reviewer below who gave it 1 star is a case in point (he argues that "Polanyi fails to understand the essential nature of a free market, voluntary trade for mutual benefit," but the problem isn't that Polanyi doesn't understand such a concept but rather that he shows it isn't true). Other critics like to misrepresent Polanyi's arguments and paint him as a Marxist, a romantic, or an opponent of modernity; in reality, he was merely pointing out how devastating it is when every aspect of human life is left up to the market, with its cold logic of efficiency.
Mere Insinuation, but plausible, important and transcendant
Polanyi sets forth an incredibly relevant, radical, and all too plausible theory in this book.
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Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Cultural    2. Economic History    3. Economics    4. General    5. History    6. History: World    7. Social History    8. Sociology    9. Cultural studies    10. Political Science / General   

Reviews (1)

landmark work
Victor Turner is one of the great names in anthropology and this is a classic work of analysis of social rituals. He takes van Gennep's theories on rites of passage to a new level, examining how different elements offestivals and rites function. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Archaeology / Anthropology    2. Cultural And Social Anthropology    3. Sociology    4. Sociology - General    5. Sociology of Religion    6. Social Science / Sociology / General    7. Sociology, Social Studies   

Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Cultural    2. Consumer Health    3. Cross-cultural studies    4. Diet / Health / Fitness    5. Diseases    6. General    7. History    8. Pain    9. Social Science    10. Sociology    11. Treatment    12. History of medicine    13. Pain & pain management    14. Science / General    15. Social history   

Reviews (2)

A fresh and valuable approach
I decided to read that book because of its frequent appearance in other highly interesting scriptures on 'situated cognition', most notably in Andy Clark's "Being There". Mindblowing!
In early 1997, this book helped change the course of my career. Read more

Subjects:  1. Cognitive Psychology    2. Psychology    3. Anthropology    4. Cognition & cognitive psychology    5. Psychology & Psychiatry / Cognitive Psychology   

Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Cultural    2. Archaeology / Anthropology    3. Authorship    4. Autobiography    5. Education    6. Ethnic Studies - General    7. Ethnology    8. Interviewing in ethnology    9. Methodology    10. Research    11. Education / Research    12. Ethnography   

Reviews (11)

Excellent information!An Easy & Fun Read!
Ryan and Durnings book contains excellent information about products we use everyday, and how our choices matter.After reading the first section tracing the history of coffee, I was prompted to go to my health food store and purchase "shade coffee" (organic or cooperatively produced).
Serious but fun read
This is one fun and informative book and one I am buying for young as well as older friends. I sit here typing on a computer keyboard and because of the book I see things I never really stopped to see before.And with this comes questions and answers about how many people and natural resources does it take to make all the elements of this modern marvel. Not just the keyboard, monitor and speakers, but the people behind Amazon.com who are consuming coffee, flushing toilets, using lights and machines to process my order.
Limited as an Environmental Guidebook, but Informative.
In "Stuff", Ryan provides a comprehensive description of the materials and processes used to produce, use, and dispose of a variety of everyday consumer products (automobile, hamburger, coffee, newspaper, etc.).He presents precise statistics on the quantity of raw and recycled materials, energy, and pollution caused by this production and consumption of each product."Stuff" is concise and thoroughly researched.
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Subjects:  1. Anthropology - General    2. Consumer goods    3. Ecological Anthropology    4. Environmental Science    5. Environmental Studies    6. Environmental aspects    7. Green products    8. Natural Resources    9. North America    10. Politics/International Relations    11. Social Science