Mahbub ul Haq died in 1998, three years after the publication of his important work, Reflections on Human Development. The book appeared at the end of Haq's impressive career in international development and described his revolutionary contribution to the discipline. In it, Haq argues that the goal of any society should be to improve the lives of its citizens, therefore economic development should support that aim. Economists should use indicators...
American anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) earned his PhD from the prestigious Harvard University, where he followed the interdisciplinary approach pioneered by the institution's Department of Social Relations. Previous generations of anthropologists had imported their own value systems and culture, regardless of which part of the world they were studying. Native cultures were almost always judged to fall short in comparison to colonialists'...
Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 - November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist who featured frequently as an author and speaker in the mass media during the 1960s and 1970s. She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard College in New York City and her MA and PhD degrees from Columbia University. Mead served as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1975. ENJOY THIS COLLECTION OF INTERVIEWS AND CONFERENCES....
In The Gift (1925), Marcel Mauss elevates a simple gift from the status of innocent object to something that has the capacity to motivate people and define social relationships. The Gift analyzes cultures across the world and across time, examining the ways gifts are given and received to understand the rules and traditions of many different societies. Gifts can be tangible, like jewelry, or intangible, like the offering of skills. But binding relationships...
Distinguished British historian Geoffrey Parker spent 15 years writing this ambitious history of the tumultuous seventeenth century, when nations were in the grip of what was known as the General Crisis. First published in 2013, Global Crisis reveals that freak weather was a key reason why the people of the 1600s lurched between droughts, famines, and countless wars. Plunging temperatures in the Little Ice Age combined with bad political decisions...
Introduces the field of forensic anthropology, where scientists and criminal investigators use the human skeleton to solve some of the world's most mysterious and violent crimes.
In this course of lectures Prof. Fischer surveys anthropology, the study of human societies and comparative customs with a special emphasis on pre-capitalist societies and the things which pre-capitalist societies and modern societies have in common.
This transcript book is meant to accompany Great Courses No. 4617. It includes the text of each lecture, biographical notes, and a bibliography. This course examines a wide range of cultural diversity, addressing such questions as: what do we as human share and what makes us different ; what sorts of behavior are acceptable and what are not in different societies ; and what can this tell us about ourselves as human beings? In looking at cultures around...
Dr. Montgomery served as director of studies at the prestigious International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg. France for three years. For thirteen years he has integrated biblical theology and human rights through a summer program in Strasbourg. Learn why only a serious biblical theology can supply the foundations for human rights in our world.
In her original and controversial 2005 book, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject, Saba Mahmood examines the women's mosque movement in Cairo, Egypt, as part of a wider turn to religious fervor integral to the broader Islamic revival of the twenty-first century. Mahmood's research suggests that in choosing to embrace the norms of their faith, these pious Muslim women are not limiting, but rather affirming, themselves. They...
Social anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard wrote Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande after 20 months' fieldwork with the Azande people of the South Sudan. It became the founding text in the anthropology of witchcraft, and has been hailed as a classic. Although Witchcraft had little impact when it first appeared in 1937, its popularity grew after World War II. Alongside his subsequent work on the Nuer people, Witchcraft established Evans-Pritchard's...
In this powerful classic, the eminent Swiss philosopher Max Picard argues that though the "flight from God" is not a phenomenon unique to this age, man has nevertheless put himself and society in an extremely dangerous situation with the progressive secularization of Western culture. In the age of faith, Picard says, a man had to make a conscious decision to separate himself from the world of faith. Today, the world, not just the individual, is in...
Local is Our Future' by Helena Norberg-Hodge connects the dots between our social, economic, ecological and spiritual crises, revealing how a systemic shift from global to local can address these seemingly disparate problems simultaneously. Distilling the wisdom gleaned from four decades of activism and direct experience in both the global North and South, Helena lucidly deconstructs the old narrative of 'progress' through technological advance and...
Weaves together biblical exposition and practical application to demonstrate how emotions relate to the Christian life. Emotions are a vital part of what it means to be a human being made in the image of God and redeemed in Jesus Christ. But often our emotions confuse and mislead us. So what is the proper place for emotions in a Christian's walk of faith? In Feelings and Faith Brian Borgman draws from his extensive biblical knowledge and his pastoral...
Anthropology is the organized study of what makes humans human. It takes an objective step back to ask questions like: Given our common characteristics, why aren't all of us exactly the same? And how can knowing the reasons behind our differences-as well as our similarities-teach us useful lessons for the future? The updated edition of Anthropology For Dummies gives you a panoramic view of the fascinating fieldwork and theory that seeks to answer...