Anthropology Books - Page 4

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East

Sandy Tolan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 61 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Courageous Friendship 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The Lemon Tree is a true gem amid the harsh cacophony of literature surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This compelling true story weaves together two histories--at once the histories of two families and two peoples--connected to the same house and the same land.

In 1936, Ahmad Khairi built a home for his young family in the Palestinian town of Ramla, which was then part of the British Mandate. As Ahmad's children, including his eldest son Bashir, grew up in this lovingly built house--with its majestic lemon tree in the backyard--the Eshkanazi family faced an uncertain future in Nazi-aligned Bulgaria. Though they could not have imagined it at the time, the two families' lives would become deeply connected even as history places them on opposite sides of a volatile conflict.

The encounter begins when Bashir, who as a child was forced to flee Ramla during the 1948 war, travels back to his childhood home following the Six Day War in 1967. To his surprise, he is warmly welcomed inside by Dalia Eshkanazi, an Israeli college student whose family of Holocaust survivors immigrated to the newly formed state when she was an infant. It is the beginning of an incredible friendship that perseveres in spite of the impassioned political disagreement and painful history that stands between them.

Tolan takes no liberties with the history, basing the story on extensive interviews and archival research. The Lemon Tree reads part like a vividly detailed novel and part like a history text, placing the moving stories of Dalia and Bashir within several decades of rich historical context. By blending these personal and historical narratives, the story offers a unique window into the conflict, beyond the political complexities and ideological abstractions. Tolan's retelling is sensitive to both narratives, empathetically portraying the traumas, insecurities, and yearnings of each side.

While The Lemon Tree offers inspiring proof that reconciliation and dialogue are possible, the book leaves open the question of how much these personal connections can impact the conflict. Although she sympathizes with Bashir and other refugees, Dalia fears an influx of Arabs and clashes with him over the right of return. Bashir, for his part, never recognizes Israel and insists that recent Jewish immigrants should "go back where they came from." Accused by Israel of being in the PFLP, Bashir is arrested in connection with a terrorist bombing; he denies involvement and is eventually released, but Dalia believes he is guilty. Later, Bashir reveals a hidden childhood trauma that sheds light on his enmity toward Israel. Both, especially Bashir, continue to show a fundamental mistrust for the other side.

Almost miraculously, they are able to sustain their friendship despite all this, and the affection and caring between them is genuine. While giving no easy answers, their story stands as a ray of hope for the possibility of coexistence in spite of a difficult history.

Editorial Review:

In 1967, Bashir Al-Khayri, a Palestinian twenty-five-year-old, journeyed to Israel, with the goal of seeing the beloved old stone house, with the lemon tree behind it, that he and his family had fled nineteen years earlier. To his surprise, when he found the house he was greeted by Dalia Ashkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, whose family fled Europe for Israel following the Holocaust. On the stoop of their shared home, Dalia and Bashir began a rare friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and tested over the next thirty-five years in ways that neither could imagine on that summer day in 1967. Based on extensive research, and springing from his enormously resonant documentary that aired on NPR’s Fresh Air in 1998, Sandy Tolan brings the Israeli-Palestinian conflict down to its most human level, suggesting that even amid the bleakest political realities there exist stories of hope and reconciliation.

The Five Love Languages for Singles (Chapman, Gary)

Gary Chapman

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Relationships -> Marriage

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Mediocre 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Okay first of all, I read this entire book in about 3 hours. This was part of a study we were doing at a bible study group; and I have to say I'm cynical about this book even from a Christian's perspective.

First, take a look at the cover. See those ridiculously happy nicely dressed perfect looking people? Well if you're not one of them, this book isn't for you. It's full of superficial and contrived mini-stories. To me
they just don't seem to fit in with real life situations that people have with all the hurting and complicated lives we go through. The stories remind me of those how-to educational films from the 40's

The basic message of the book is this: learn what makes people in your life feel loved, follow the golden rule, etc. etc. It's pretty much intuition. I don't think however that it will lead to some miraculous change in how you deal with people nor will it do anything to help you establish new relationships.

Editorial Review:

Gary Chapman first penned the best-selling The Five Love Languages more than ten years ago. The core message has hit home with over 3 million people as it focuses on humanity's deepest emotional need: the need to 'feel' loved. This need is felt by married and singles alike. Dr. Chapman now tackles the unique circumstances that singles face, and integrates how the same five love languages apply in their relationships. For example, in a business environment, when and how is physical touch appropriate? Take the love language test included.

Images of the Past

T. Douglas Price, Gary Feinman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Wonderful book 5 out of 5 stars.
17 of 17 people found this review helpful.

This is a wonderful book on archaeology from a world wide perspective. Techniques and time periods are well illustrated with examples taken from work done all over the world. Some of the most famous archeological sites are discussed: Olduvai, Zhoukoudien, Sanidar Cave, Jericho, Cahokia, Teotihuacan, Tikal, Moche, Cuzco, Uruk, Giza, An-Yang, Great Zimbabwe, Knossos, and others possibly more familiar to those with other areas of archaeological interest. This would make a lovely addition to the library of those who have more specialized interests but who want to know more about other areas or who enjoy learning new things about archaeology itself. It's definitely a book I'll re-read, and I don't generally do that.

Editorial Review:

This well illustrated, full-color, site-by-site survey of prehistory captures the popular interest, excitement, and visual splendor of archaeology as it provides insight into the research, interpretations, and theoretical themes in the field. The new edition maintains the authors' innovative solutions to two central problems of the course: first, the text continues to focus on about 80 sites, giving students less encyclopedic detail but essential coverage of the discoveries that have produced the major insights into prehistory; second, it continues to be organized into essays on sites and concepts, allowing professors complete flexibility in organizing their courses.

Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul

Kenneth R. Miller

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Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A leading scientist examines the battle between evolution and Intelligent Design in America

At the dawn of the twenty- first century, the debate over Darwin’s theory of evolution is nearly as contentious as it was in the notorious Scopes trial a century ago. Today, however, people who believe that evolution is “only a theory” have put their hopes in a concept known as Intelligent Design.

In Only a Theory, Kenneth Miller dissects the claims of the ID movement in the same incisive style that marked his testimony as an expert witness in Pennsylvania’s landmark 2005 Dover evolution trial.

Unlike other books on the subject, Only a Theory’s critique of ID goes far beyond the scientific claims of the movement. To Miller, America’s “soul”—its place as the world’s leading scientific nation—is at risk because of this struggle. As he explains, the tactics of this new assault on science mimic earlier efforts of the academic left to remake science as a relativistic, culturally determined enterprise, rather than a rational search for truth about the natural world. Such marginalization, he argues, would effectively destroy American science.

Despite this analysis, Miller refuses to play the role of pessimist. He sees this as a teachable opportunity, a moment at which public understanding and support for science can be redeemed, and offers nothing less than a prescription for how America can save its scientific soul.

Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa

Katherine Dettwyler

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Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

1995 Margaret Mead Award winner! This personal account by a biocultural anthropologist illuminates important, not-soon-forgotten messages involving the more sobering aspects of conducting fieldwork among malnourished children in West Africa. With nutritional anthropology at its core, Dancing Skeletons presents informal, engaging and oftentimes dramatic stories from the field that relate the author's experiences conducting research on infant feeding and health in Mali. Through fascinating vignettes and honest, vivid descriptions, Dettwyler explores such diverse topics as ethnocentrism, culture shock, population control, breastfeeding, child care, the meaning of disability and child death in different cultures, female circumcision, women's roles in patrilineal societies, the dangers of fieldwork, and the realities involved in researching emotionally draining topics. Readers will alternately laugh and cry as they meet the author's friends and informants, follow her through a series of encounters with both peri-urban and rural Bambara culture, and struggle with her as she attempts to reconcile her very different roles as objective ethnographer, subjective friend, and mother in the field.

Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America (Great Questions in Politics Series) (2nd Edition) (Great Questions in Politics)

Morris P. Fiorina, Samuel J. Abrams, Jeremy C. Pope

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Blue America would like to think there's no brewing war 1 out of 5 stars.
3 of 22 people found this review helpful.

As a statistician who did their dissertation on large data sets of longitudinal culture differences- I find the authors data sets biased and her conclusions misleading.

The only thing I haven't been surprised about is that here in "red america" there hasn't been armed conflict.

-Reagon called us- red america- a sea of Shining Blue but somehow the MSM managed to switch the terms. I guess being called red is a little to close to the bone for people like Markos Mousalitas- who represents both the center of the democrats and is a communist (his home page). But maybe another Clinton administration will do the trick.

Lefties -this is how you do it.
-Serious Gun Control and registration, ammunition rationing
-The Fairness Doctrine
-Open Borders
-Elevate Christian symbols to hate speech
-Absolutely no charter schools, home schooling, voucher programs
-Heavy affirmative action
-Huge increase in size of federal government
-Huge tax increase
- No domestic energy production and eneregy rationing
Then all you need is a spark.

Sounds like your platform. You're right I don't think all of you are liberals, most of you are Maoists.

Editorial Review:

Part of the "Great Questions in Politics" series, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America combines polling data with a compelling narrative to debunk commonly-believed myths about American politics–particularly the claim that Americans are deeply divided in their fundamental political views. This second edition of Culture War? features a new chapter that demonstrates how the elections of 2004 reinforce the book’s argument that Americans are no more divided now than they were in the past. In addition, the text has been updated throughout to reflect data from the 2004 elections.

Anthropology: The Exploration of Human Diversity with Living Anthropology Student CD

Conrad Kottak

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Editorial Review:

Written by Kottak, recent inductee to The National Academy of Sciences, this text continues to offer a holistic, four-field perspective introduction to anthropology. To emphasize anthropology's integrated and comparative nature, "Bringing It All Together" essays show how anthropology's sub-fields and dimensions combine to interpret and explain a common topic. Another distinctive feature, "Understanding Ourselves," illustrates the relevance of anthropological facts and theories to students' everyday lives.

The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (P.S.)

Jared M. Diamond

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Total reviews: 95 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Jared Diamond states the theme of his book up-front: "How the human species changed, within a short time, from just another species of big mammal to a world conqueror; and how we acquired the capacity to reverse all that progress overnight." The Third Chimpanzee is, in many ways, a prequel to Diamond's prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. While Guns examines "the fates of human societies," this work surveys the longer sweep of human evolution, from our origin as just another chimpanzee a few million years ago. Diamond writes:

It's obvious that humans are unlike all animals. It's also obvious that we're a species of big mammal down to the minutest details of our anatomy and our molecules. That contradiction is the most fascinating feature of the human species.

The chapters in The Third Chimpanzee on the oddities of human reproductive biology were later expanded in Why Is Sex Fun? Here, they're linked to Diamond's views of human psychology and history.

Diamond is officially a physiologist at UCLA medical school, but he's also one of the best birdwatchers in the world. The current scientific consensus that "primitive" humans created ecological catastrophes in the Pacific islands, Australia, and the New World owes a great deal to his fieldwork and insight. In Diamond's view, the current global ecological crisis isn't due to modern technology per se, but to basic weaknesses in human nature. But, he says, "I'm cautiously optimistic. If we will learn from our past that I have traced, our own future may yet prove brighter than that of the other two chimpanzees." --Mary Ellen Curtin

Human Biology: Concepts and Current Issues (4th Edition) (The Human Biology Place Series)

Michael D. Johnson

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Human Biology: Concepts and Current Issues, Fourth Edition sparks interest among non-science readers by encouraging them to connect basic biology concepts to real-world issues that are relevant to their own lives. As an award winning teacher, author Michael Johnson demystifies the scientific process and the concepts of human biology using a narrative style to tell a story with a reader-friendly approach. Liposuction, antioxidants, and the black market for bones are just a few of the timely topics that are woven throughout each chapter to engage readers in learning the basics of human biology. Michael Johnson’s jargon-free writing style and expanded coverage of current issues are supported by dozens of exciting new illustrations and photos that further engage reader interest, while unique “Try It Yourself” boxes and the accompanying InterActive Physiology^® for Human Biology CD-ROM promote active learning. Human Biology, Science, and Society, The Chemistry of Living Things, Structure and Function of Cells, From Cells to Organ Systems, The Skeletal System, The Muscular System, Blood, Heart and Blood Vessels, The Immune System and Mechanisms of Defense, The Respiratory System: Exchange of Gases, The Nervous System: Integration and Control, Sensory Mechanisms, The Endocrine System, The Digestive System, The Urinary System, Reproductive Systems, Cell Reproduction and Differentiation, Cancer: Uncontrolled Cell Division and Differentiation, Genetics and Inheritance, DNA Technology and Genetic Engineering, Development and Aging, Evolution and the Origins of Life, Ecosystems and Populations, Human Impacts, Biodiversity, and Environmental Issues. For all readers interested in demystifying the scientific process and the concepts of human biology using a narrative style to tell a story with a reader-friendly approach.

The Library at Night

Alberto Manguel

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Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Inspired by the process of creating a library for his fifteenth-century home near the Loire, in France, Alberto Manguel, the acclaimed writer on books and reading, has taken up the subject of libraries. “Libraries,” he says, “have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been seduced by their labyrinthine logic.” In this personal, deliberately unsystematic, and wide-ranging book, he offers a captivating meditation on the meaning of libraries.

Manguel, a guide of irrepressible enthusiasm, conducts a unique library tour that extends from his childhood bookshelves to the “complete” libraries of the Internet, from Ancient Egypt and Greece to the Arab world, from China and Rome to Google. He ponders the doomed library of Alexandria as well as the personal libraries of Charles Dickens, Jorge Luis Borges, and others. He recounts stories of people who have struggled against tyranny to preserve freedom of thought—the Polish librarian who smuggled books to safety as the Nazis began their destruction of Jewish libraries; the Afghani bookseller who kept his store open through decades of unrest. Oral “memory libraries” kept alive by prisoners, libraries of banned books, the imaginary library of Count Dracula, the library of books never written—Manguel illuminates the mysteries of libraries as no other writer could. With scores of wonderful images throughout, The Library at Night is a fascinating voyage through Manguel’s mind, memory, and vast knowledge of books and civilizations.