Anthropology Books - Page 5

Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

Peter Menzel, Faith D'Aluisio

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Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> Photo Essays

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 43 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

interesting read 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

this book is facinating if you are at all interested in how the rest of the world lives

Superb reading!! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I couldn't put this book down! I was drawn to it because it mixed my loves of both food and culture into one superb read.The photography is stunning,the cultural facts immersing and the reading about different families addictive.

Hungry Planet 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Everyone I have shown this book to has been fascinated. The photos are stunning.

Great book! 5 out of 5 stars.
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An through and interesting way to present the food of different cultures. The book not only shows a picture of what a week's worth of food looks like across the globe, but puts how much it costs and in USD. The book also elaborates on the eating habits, culture, and daily life of the people. There are also recipes! A great book with an eye opening perspective of people all over the world.

Outstanding 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Hungry Planet is a moving look at what families of the world live on...it combines incredible photography, well chosen statistics and outstanding commentary to clearly portray the diversity and real life economic situations of our fellows on planet earth. I love this book for the way it influences my children to see compassionately and with greater gratitude (and me too!)

Editorial Review:

This photographic study of families from 24 countries reveals what people eat during the course of one week. Each family's profile includes a detailed description of their food purchases and their community.

People skills: How to assert yourself, listen to others, and resolve conflicts (A Spectrum book)

Robert Bolton

By: Prentice-Hall Amazon Marketplace: 19 new & used starting at $1.87

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Total reviews: 40 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A wall of silent resentment shuts you off from someone you love....You listen to an argument in which neither party seems to hear the other....Your mind drifts to other matters when people talk to you....

People Skills is a communication-skills handbook that can help you eliminate these and other communication problems. Author Robert Bolton describes the twelve most common communication barriers, showing how these "roadblocks" damage relationships by increasing defensiveness, aggressiveness, or dependency. He explains how to acquire the ability to listen, assert yourself, resolve conflicts, and work out problems with others. These are skills that will help you communicate calmly, even in stressful emotionally charged situations.

People Skills will show you

* How to get your needs met using simple assertion techniques

* How body language often speaks louder than words

* How to use silence as a valuable communication tool

* How to de-escalate family disputes, lovers' quarrels, and other heated arguments

Both thought-provoking and practical, People Skills is filled with workable ideas that you can use to improve your communication in meaningful ways, every day.

Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique

Michael S. Gazzaniga

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

One of the world's leading neuroscientists explores how best to understand the human condition by examining the biological, psychological, and highly social nature of our species within the social context of our lives.

What happened along the evolutionary trail that made humans so unique? In his widely accessible style, Michael Gazzaniga looks to a broad range of studies to pinpoint the change that made us thinking, sentient humans, different from our predecessors.

Neuroscience has been fixated on the life of the psychological self for the past fifty years, focusing on the brain systems underlying language, memory, emotion, and perception. What it has not done is consider the stark reality that most of the time we humans are thinking about social processes, comparing ourselves to and estimating the intentions of others. In Human, Gazzaniga explores a number of related issues, including what makes human brains unique, the importance of language and art in defining the human condition, the nature of human consciousness, and even artificial intelligence.

Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment

Phil Zuckerman

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Before he began his recent travels, it seemed to Phil Zuckerman as if humans all over the globe were “getting religion”—praising deities, performing holy rites, and soberly defending the world from sin. But most residents of Denmark and Sweden, he found, don’t worship any god at all, don’t pray, and don’t give much credence to religious dogma of any kind. Instead of being bastions of sin and corruption, however, as the Christian Right has suggested a godless society would be, these countries are filled with residents who score at the very top of the “happiness index” and enjoy their healthy societies, which boast some of the lowest rates of violent crime in the world (along with some of the lowest levels of corruption), excellent educational systems, strong economies, well-supported arts, free health care, egalitarian social policies, outstanding bike paths, and great beer.

Zuckerman formally interviewed nearly 150 Danes and Swedes of all ages and educational backgrounds over the course of fourteen months, beginning in 2005. He was particularly interested in the worldviews of people who live their lives without religious orientation. How do they think about and cope with death? Are they worried about an afterlife? What he found is that nearly all of his interviewees live their lives without much fear of the Grim Reaper or worries about the hereafter. This led him to wonder how and why it is that certain societies are nonreligious in a world that seems to be marked by increasing religiosity. Drawing on prominent sociological theories and his own extensive research, Zuckerman ventures some interesting answers.

This fascinating approach directly counters the claims of outspoken, conservative American Christians who argue that a society without God would be hell on earth. It is crucial, Zuckerman believes, for Americans to know that “society without God is not only possible, but it can be quite civil and pleasant.”

Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are

Rob Walker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Bought In 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The great thing about this book is that unlike most marketing and business related reads--this one is actually enjoyable. I didn't want to put it down. Rob has a way of capturing his points in a personal, conversational manner that draws your interest and keeps it.

As a designer, I typically disregard books related to marketing because I believe that things have changed so much that most of them are missing the mark. Traditional marketing is a dinosaur. Buying In goes beyond Communication 101 and points out how little control companies have over the marketplace now. Consumers play a large part in defining a brand and therefore build the relationships that Marketer's could only dream of and don't fully understand themselves.

A few of the examples used could be considered cliche, but they are used because their stories are so powerful that it would be blasphemous to leave them out of a book like this. Most of them were insightful and many were new to me.

This isn't an instruction book on how to make money and doesn't give you the answers to any great business problems, but it creates an important conversation that should be held by anyone looking to continue building relationships with their customers. This book serves as great inspiration to those who are willing to change the way they do business and think about other avenues of communicating who they are to potential audiences. But most of all I think the book benefits the consumer in ways that draw better insight into why they buy what they do, and how it represents who they are.

Great read, very enjoyable and inspiring.

Editorial Review:

An Intrepid Business Journalist's Counterintuitive Look at the Convergence of Marketing and Culture in Contemporary Life.

Using fascinating profiles of companies and products old and new, including Red Bull, the iPod, Timberland, and American Apparel, New York Times "Consumed" columnist Rob Walker demonstrates that modern consumers are likely to embrace marketing and use brands to craft and express their political, cultural, and even artistic identities. Combine this with marketers' new ability to blur the line between advertising, entertainment, and public space, and you have dramatically altered the relationship between consumer and consumed.

Presented unabridged on 8 CDs, narrated by Robert Fass.

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

Jared M. Diamond

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 99 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Print way too small 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Wow! Got the paperback version. Need a magnifying glass to read it. Waiting for it to come on the Kindle.

This book is a Great Leap Forward 5 out of 5 stars.
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Of Jared Diamond's books, this one and Guns, Germs and Steel, I prefer this one. Unlike Guns this one is not as redundant and has more focused chapters. I compare it to going to listen to a good college lecturer where you might listen to well focused lectures that get you thinking, but may not have an ambitious global theme (like Guns) to tie it all together.

Most of the chapters I found enlightening and all though I am fairly well versed on physical anthropology there were many new insights that I picked up. The first chapter talks about breakthroughs in dna clocking that establishes the title.

The second chapter titled, The Great Leap Forward I found interesting and perhaps perplexing. Most anthropologists including Diamond seem to think that Homo Sapien goes back about 200,000 years. Most anthropologists mark 40,000 years ago, The Great Leap Forward as a critical time in Homo Sapien development. It seems clear that this is when we developed language which is supported by the physical changes in the skull. However, few seem to recognize this as the time when there was an actual species shift from Home Erectus to Home Sapien. This is also in spite of the fact that other possible rivals such as Neaderthal disappeared.

The best chapters in the book are three through six which detail aspects of human sexuality. I think these are must reading for anyone that is interested in an objective point of view of our sexual behaviours. There are enlightening sections that not only discuss behaviours that we have adapted such as monogamy but also why they would be advantageous to survival. There are other interesting discussions about menopause and why humans have large genitals comparative to other primates.

There is also a very good chapter called the Golden Age that Never Was. This questions the romantic notion that pre-westernized societies lived in harmony with nature and practiced better conservation habits then we did today. Diamond does a great job of debating this notion by detailing the disappearance of megafauna when coming into contact with humans. This is a controversial argument. I have spent an entire class with a professor who refuted this idea claiming that it is not likely that humans would hunt a species to extinction. Generally, I am biased to my education but in this case I was swayed to Diamond's point of view. He gave very convincing arguments. Especially, good was the discussion of the disappearance of Mammoth's in North America.

The only improvement I would ask for is the removal of the chapter 11, Why Do We Smoke, Drink and Use Dangerous Drugs. I really felt that he missed the mark on this one.

Editorial Review:

The Development of an Extraordinary Species

We human beings share 98 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet humans are the dominant species on the planet -- having founded civilizations and religions, developed intricate and diverse forms of communication, learned science, built cities, and created breathtaking works of art -- while chimps remain animals concerned primarily with the basic necessities of survival. What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins? In this fascinating, provocative, passionate, funny, endlessly entertaining work, renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning author and scientist Jared Diamond explores how the extraordinary human animal, in a remarkably short time, developed the capacity to rule the world . . . and the means to irrevocably destroy it.

Children: the challenge

Rudolf Dreikurs

By: Duell, Sloan & Pearce Amazon Marketplace: 7 new & used starting at $1.49

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 49 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A Great Book 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This was my favorite book that my pediatrician recommended when my children were little; it had the best analysis of children's behavior and how to respond to them. My kids are now grown and I am buying this book for them to read in preparation for raising their children. It is a great resource for understanding children and how to respond to them appropriately.

Editorial Review:

Children:The Challenge gives the key to parents who seek to build trust and love in their families, and raise happier, healthier, and better behaved children. Based on a lifetime of experience with children--their problems, their delights, their challenges--Dr. Rudolf Dreikurs, one of America's foremost child psychiatrists presents an easy to follow program that teaches parents how to cope with the common childhood problems that occur from toddler through preteen years. This warm and reassuring reference helps parents to understand their children's actions better, giving them the guidance necessary to discipline lovingly and effectively.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific

J. Maarten Troost

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Total reviews: 100 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

At the age of twenty-six, Maarten Troost—who had been pushing the snooze button on the alarm clock of life by racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs—decided to pack up his flip-flops and move to Tarawa, a remote South Pacific island in the Republic of Kiribati. He was restless and lacked direction, and the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals tells the hilarious story of what happens when Troost discovers that Tarawa is not the island paradise he dreamed of. Falling into one amusing misadventure after another, Troost struggles through relentless, stifling heat, a variety of deadly bacteria, polluted seas, toxic fish—all in a country where the only music to be heard for miles around is “La Macarena.” He and his stalwart girlfriend Sylvia spend the next two years battling incompetent government officials, alarmingly large critters, erratic electricity, and a paucity of food options (including the Great Beer Crisis); and contending with a bizarre cast of local characters, including “Half-Dead Fred” and the self-proclaimed Poet Laureate of Tarawa (a British drunkard who’s never written a poem in his life).

With The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Maarten Troost has delivered one of the most original, rip-roaringly funny travelogues in years—one that will leave you thankful for staples of American civilization such as coffee, regular showers, and tabloid news, and that will provide the ultimate vicarious adventure.

The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream

John Zogby

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Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

According to super pollster John Zogby, whom The Washington Post calls “the maverick predictor,” the conventional wisdom about the United States–that we’re isolated from the world, politically fragmented, and inclined toward material pleasure–isn’t just flawed; it may be 180 degrees from the truth. In this far-reaching and illuminating look at contemporary American life, Zogby reveals nothing less than The Way We’ll Be. Drawing on thousands of in-depth surveys conducted especially for the book, Zogby points out where we’re headed–politically, culturally, and spiritually.

The American dream is in transition; it is rapidly being redefined by four meta-movements: living with limits as consumers and citizens; embracing diversity of views and ways of life; looking inward to find spiritual comfort; and demanding authenticity from the media, our leaders, and leading institutions. Spearheaded by today’s eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-olds–the “First Global” generation–Americans are becoming more internationalist, consensus-oriented, and environmentally conscious and less willing to identify themselves by the things they do to earn or spend their money. But this is more than a youth tide. Americans of all ages are moving beyond old divides–red state/blue state, pro-life/pro-choice, beer drinker/wine connoisseur–to form a new national consensus that will shape the nation for decades to come.

Zogby’s cogent analysis of the data yields an astonishing perspective on Americans’ thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, now and in coming years. Understanding this emerging reality will be key for

• leaders in all fields who want to reach audiences that are more media-savvy, better informed, and more technologically enabled than ever before

• individuals in search of rewarding and fulfilling careers in tomorrow’s growth fields

• politicians and CEOs looking to marry policies and practices to the rising demand for social responsibility

• anyone who wants to market to the emerging new American consensus

Beyond telling a fascinating story, the conclusions in this book are a must-read for everyone from Main Street to Madison Avenue to Capitol Hill. Filled with expert analysis and insight from one of today’s most successful predictors and trend spotters, The Way We’ll Be will redefine how we view America’s future.

The Library at Night

Alberto Manguel

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Total reviews: 10 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.

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