Culture Books - Page 17

The Dobe Ju/'Hoansi (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology)

Richard B. Lee

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Wonderful 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I read this book while taking an undergraduate sociocultural anthropology class. Several years later, it still stands out in my mind as a crisp, fair ethnography in a field full of opaque and often pejorative books.

Richard B. Lee's accomplishment here is to balance a scientific and human approach. Realizing how strongly a physical environment can impact a culture, Lee smartly and dispassionately details the basic facts of the Ju/'Hoansi's past and current situation - the geography and ecology of their home in the Kalahari desert, their food supply, etc. On this canvas, he paints a picture of the culture of this people. This sweeps from the physical layout of their camps to their language (including a thorough exposition of those interesting click consonants) to their handling of mortality and sexuality to the privileges and "complaint discourse" of older members of the society. Then Lee qualifies this whole portrait by describing recent developments, including enroachment of other cultures, erosion of the traditional lifestyle, and the dispossession and advocacy that has defined the Ju's recent relationships with the Namibian and Botswanan governments.

What amazed me about all this is that Lee remains tenderly human during this rich exposition. He writes of the Ju with great respect and humbly describes vigniettes of his interaction with his subjects - like when he got his pet name and when he had crushes on various native women. He avoids sentimental exoticism when describing how the culture began to fall apart due to pressures on their territory from Black herders. Instead, he documents the painful transition with precision and observational detail and even finds sources of hope. For example, he connects Ju women's lower-than-average HIV infection rates with the culture's respect for women, arguing that Ju women's assertiveness make them more likely to insist on condom use. Also, rather than arguing that only the old way could be good for the Ju, Lee looks forward, advocating the Ju's integration into the larger society and adaptation of modern land-use patterns.

In this book, Richard Lee shows himself to be one of the rare anthropologists who do a good job portraying their culture of study but resist the possessive urge to lament its change and adaptation over time. For me, it recalls many happy hours reading in college, taking in the sunshine while struggling through all the click consonants. I heartily recommend it.

Editorial Review:

This classic, bestselling study of the !Kung San, foragers of the Dobe area of the Kalahari Desert describes a people's reactions to the forces of modernization, detailing relatively recent changes to !Kung rituals, beliefs, social structure, marriage and kinship system. It documents their determination to take hold of their own destiny—despite exploitation of their habitat and relentless development—to assert their political rights and revitalize their communities. Use of the name Ju/'hoansi (meaning "real people") acknowledges their new sense of empowerment.

Joint Custody with a Jerk: Raising a Child with an Uncooperative Ex, A Hands on, practical guide to coping with custody issues that arise with an uncooperative ex-spouse

Julie A. Ross, Judy Corcoran

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 37 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

DON'T BOTHER 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book is terrible. They bend so far over backwards not to insult men that they insult women. It tells you basically, yes he is a jerk but YOU must bend over backwards to accomodate his jerkiness. It adds to the current family court system that says that you can do whatever you want and the person pooped on must be the one to give in to the selfish one, the one who is morally wrong. That is right. We live in the west. Morals are relative.

Don't buy this book unless you want more frustration.

Editorial Review:

Parenting is difficult enough in a family where the two parents love and respect each other. In divorce, where the respect has diminished and the love has often turned into intense dislike, co-parenting cane drive on or both parents to the brink of insanity. Joint Custody with a Jerk offers many proven communication techniques that will help you deal with your difficult ex-husband or ex-wife by describing examples of common problems and teaching you to examine your role in these sticky situations. These strategies for effective mediation are easy to apply, down-to-earth, and innovative.

Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Eduardo Galeano

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The passion and the glory of the beautiful game, captured on the eve of the World Cup. From the origins of soccer to the World Cup played in the US in 1994, one of Latin America's most fluent and widely read commentators captures the enduring appeal of the world's greatest game. Eduardo Galeano seeks out the mystical and the bewitched, the romance and the emotional destitution experienced by players and fans the world round. Here is a story of love and death: of the suicide of Abdon Porte, who shot himself in the center circle of the National Stadium; of the Argentine manager who wouldn't let his team eat chicken because it would bring bad luck; of the Russian goalkeeper who prepared his min and soothed his nerves with a cigarette and a dash of vodka before each game. Published in the run-up to the 1998 World Cup, this is the glory of soccer in all its international hues, with its multilingual cries of despair, victory and passion. No one who has ever played in or cheered on a soccer side will want to miss this book.

Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human

Joel Garreau

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

Editorial Review:

Taking us behind the scenes with today’s foremost researchers and pioneers, bestselling author Joel Garreau shows that we are at a turning point in history.  At this moment we are engineering the next stage of human evolution.  Through advances in genetic, robotic, information, and nanotechnologies, we are altering our minds, our memories, our metabolisms, our personalities, our progeny–and perhaps our very souls.  Radical Evolution reveals that the powers of our comic-book superheroes already exist, or are in development in hospitals, labs, and research facilities around the country–from the revved-up reflexes and speed of Spider-Man and Superman, to the enhanced mental acuity and memory capabilities of an advanced species. Over the next fifteen years, Garreau makes clear in this New York Times Book Club premiere selection, these enhancements will become part of our everyday lives. Where will they lead us? To heaven–where technology’s promise to make us smarter, vanquish illness, and extend our lives is the answer to our prayers? Or, as some argue, to hell–where unrestrained technology brings about the ultimate destruction of our species?

Changing Bodies, Changing Lives: A Book for Teens on Sex & Relationships

Ruth Bell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Changing Bodies out of date 1 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I was very disapointed with the book. Expanded third edition was deceiving because I thought it was new - my oversight. The book is out of date - I oversee a Center that teaches sex education and this was not helpful.

A good primer for younger teenagers. 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 6 people found this review helpful.

This is a primer for younger teenagers. It is well written, although it needs to be updated in 2006. It is a textbook more than a think piece. It is a good starter book for parents and younger teenagers.

Great resource for teens 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

A great resource for teens, but the pictures are a bit dated. An updated edition is in need. However, the information is still relevant and necessary for all teens.

Great book for parents of teens! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I purchased several books for my teen, and this one was one that didn't interest her as much - but I have learned a lot from it! It has a lot of insight into the teen mind, and as much as we think we remember what it was like to be a teen, it's easy to forget about all the fears and insecurities they have. I highly recommend this book as a refresher course for parents of teens. My teen preferred the perspectives offered in the books Cycle Savvy and S.E.X. for information that pertained to her.

Editorial Review:

Candidly discusses teenage sexuality and the many physical and emotional changes that occur during adolescence.

Culture Matters How Values Shape Human Progress

Lawrence E. Harrison, Samuel Huntington

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Some very good chapters 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Richard A. Shweder's "Moral maps, first world conceits, and the new evangelists", Samuel P. Huntington's "Cultures count", and Jeffrey Sachs' "Notes on a new sociology of economic development" are the best chapters to read, stimilating, and full of wits of multiple culturalism. Sachs' chapter points to a direction of the marginal explanation power of institutional analysis (though he might not realize it when he saw the relevance of geography determinism). In any case, you don't want to miss Shweder's chapter.

Editorial Review:

The world at the beginning of the twenty-first century is more divided than ever between the rich and the poor, between those living in freedom and those under oppression. Even in prosperous democracies, troubling gaps in well-being persist. As the credibility of traditional explanations--colonialism, dependency, racism--declines, many now believe that the principal reason why some countries and ethnic groups are better off than others lies in the cultural values that powerfully shape nations and people's political, economic, and social performance. Many of the distinguished contributors to Culture Matters believe that value and attitude change is indispensable to progress for those who are lagging.Among the prominent scholars and journalists contributing to the volume are Francis Fukuyama, Nathan Glazer, David Landes, Seymour Martin Lipset, Orlando Patterson, Michael Porter, Jeffrey Sachs, and Richard Shweder.

Wet: True Lesbian Sex Stories

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Damp 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Sorry, a little disappointed. I would have called this book "Damp" or "Moist" or "AllMost" or "AllMoist" ....but not "Wet". Close but no cigar...

Soaking wet 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Loved it! What a turn-on. Another great new book is "The Call Girl Actress, Confessions of a Lesbian Escort" by Erica Black.

Title Says It All 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This book is great I loved all the stories. I bought an erotica book prior to this but I wasn't too pleased with it. The stories were made up and some submitted by men. I don't want to read about some strange man's fantasy. This book was really great though. I descretely brought it into school and read it during my study halls... It made my day again and again with every page I turned. If you're looking for some great, true stories. This is your book.

Editorial Review:

Intense and vibrantly real lesbian erotica in the spirit of Skin Deep, these quick and dirty true stories revel in hot lesbian sex. As they peek into the diary of a very busy (and very bad) girl, readers will be panting hungrily as women from around the world reveal their most intimate lesbian encounters.

Nicole Foster edited the best-selling books, Skin Deep, Awakening the Virgin, Body Check, and Electric. She undresses in front of her window in Los Angeles.

How to Save Your Marriage Alone

Ed Wheat

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 37 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

A recipe for disaster. 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Many years ago I clung to this book while in the middle of a humiliating, searing disintegration of my marriage. My husband had made it clear that he wanted out for almost two years before he finally left. I remained in a church group that told me (ultimately) what I really wanted to hear: I should submit more to my husband (who wanted none of it), pray harder, hold fast and "have faith" while waiting for God to restore my marriage. I had an arsenal of scriptures and prayed on my face nightly, weeping with inconsolable grief and desperation. When he left (as he had wanted to do for so long) I was financially ruined, spiritually bankrupt and physically damaged (two sexually transmitted diseases). I would strongly urge anyone interested in this book to lay down your will (yes, your will) to "save" your marriage and to humbly and earnestly seek the will and heart of Jesus for your personal situation. My life went from the frying pan to the fire to the fires of hell because of my own very religious and ultimately disobedient choices. As Evangelicals, we have turned marriage into an idol of monstrous proportions. We have similar cult-like views of family and marriage as the Mormons...which will hopefully give you sobering pause for prayer and reflection.

Editorial Review:

Help for troubled marriages, especially for the person whose spouse is seeking a divorce, is here at last. Dealing with emotions, planning, decision-making, and the need to love, this book also contains two chapters excerpted from Love Life for Every Married Couple.

American Nerd: The Story of My People

Benjamin Nugent

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Most people know a nerd when they see one but can't define just what a nerd is. American Nerd: The Story of My People gives us the history of the concept of nerdiness and of the subcultures we consider nerdy. What makes Dr. Frankenstein the archetypal nerd? Where did the modern jock come from? When and how did being a self-described nerd become trendy? As the nerd emerged, vaguely formed, in the nineteenth century, and popped up again and again in college humor journals and sketch comedy, our culture obsessed over the designation.

Mixing research and reportage with autobiography, critically acclaimed writer Benjamin Nugent embarks on a fact-finding mission of the most entertaining variety. He seeks the best definition of nerd and illuminates the common ground between nerd subcultures that might seem unrelated: high-school debate team kids and ham radio enthusiasts, medieval reenactors and pro-circuit Halo players. Why do the same people who like to work with computers also enjoy playing Dungeons & Dragons? How are those activities similar? This clever, enlightening book will appeal to the nerd (and antinerd) that lives inside all of us.

Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

Neil Postman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 57 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Introduction to technoreactionism 3 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Written in a somewhat angry spirit, this book is one of many that have appeared in recent years that could with fairness be labeled as "technoreactionary". These books lament the current state of technology and believe it to be "alienating' and socially disruptive. They do not want to eliminate technology, but instead put it in its "proper place", with the latter not really being defined, but with the implicit connotation being clear: technology has run rampant over traditional worldviews and has become very unhealthy for the human condition.

According to the author cultures can be classified into three types, and all are represented in the modern world. The first type is called tool making and was the predominant culture up until the seventeenth century. One can still find tool-making cultures in isolated parts of the world, and the author invites the reader to seek them out. The second type is referred to as a "technocracy", wherein the old tool making culture is retained to some degree but where technology is beginning to be pursued for its own sake, with its social impact essentially ignored and its dynamic manifesting itself in bureaucracies. The third type is the "technopoly", which is not defined explicitly but instead is characterized by its uncritical acceptance by the culture that practices it.

American culture is a technopoly writes the author, and is the sole example at the present time. He gives several reasons why it became one. It first had to pass through the `technocratic' stage, this occurring somewhere along the time of the publication of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, whose ideas gave credence to the need for "impersonal, large-scale" production. Humans were then reduced to being "barterers" and "wealth seekers." Machines were invented to make machines, and inventing became the predominant pastime, with no cognizance taken of why invention should take place. Humans became not children of God but "consumers", all subject to the ups and downs of the marketplace. But then America morphed into a "technopoly," with its emphasis on scientific management, the replacement of human judgment with calculation, and meaning in social life is only to be found in the context of "machinery and technique." But for America to become a technopoly also required an "improbable world", which is characterized by an uncritical acceptance of the authority of science and a lack of what he calls an "information immune system" that will allow effective filtering of extraneous information and provide worldviews and narratives that give societies coherence and meaning.

Because of his aversion for change, and his willingness to accept myths and other cultural narratives for their ability to maintain social cohesiveness, the author follows the conservative political tradition. He complains of the tendency of technocracy/technopoly to negate the past or even turn its back on it, disrespecting traditions and supplanting them with new but very ephemeral ones. The "continuity" of family life and regional traditions are to be discarded, not because they are immoral necessarily but because they are superfluous. In a technopoly one for example does not pray for relief from disease; one uses penicillin. One does not set down roots: being mobile is the predominant lifestyle.

But it is the scientific worldview that makes modern society appear so alien to the author and to many people at the present time. Since discoveries are occurring so fast, this worldview can take on the appearance of being too "conceptually permissive." The author gives examples in his treatment of the "improbable world." But science is now giving interpretations to notions that were just a decade ago considered "off limits" to scientific investigation. For example, its view of romantic love has its origin in various chemical/neuronal processes in the brain. And then there is genetic engineering, particularly in its use of transgenic technologies, which has allowed a much more extended notion of species. A goat can take on the genes of a spider and produce silk for example, allowing spiders and goat to be related by deliberate technological intervention. And genetics of course has shown just how similar humans are to other life forms, and how easy it might be to alter human genetics to make humans even more similar to these life forms.

But the author never gives a convincing argument as to why a technopoly is unhealthy or alienating, and there are many readers that will demand he speak for himself when he makes commentary on the alienating and dominating influence of technology. Such readers, and this reviewer is one of them, find life in the modern world very exciting and meaningful. We are proud apologists for scientism and technology. We deify it and we are drunk with it, but we never get a hangover from its contemplation and indulging ourselves in it. And we will not hesitate, not for a second, in continuing to push forward its frontiers with new discoveries and new applications. And when one technology is found to be dangerous or threatening, we will work incessantly in finding another one to negate these dangers. And yes, from a particular point of view we do surrender ourselves to technology, but not from the love of domination.

It is our curiosity that we surrender to: we do not interrupt its flow and we deliberately and unashamedly move across boundaries in order to understand and explore new frontiers. No idea, no conception, and no invention is considered to be off limits, and we take delight in the disturbance of cognitive equilibrium. We worship creativity, ingenuity, and the smashing of old tablets. Our heroes are scientists, inventors, and technicians. Our morning coffee is the perusal of patent applications and preprint servers. We only feel envy when we think of future generations, when contemplating their immersion in technologies not yet envisaged. And life in the modern world is utopia for us: we feel privileged to be able to participate in this maelstrom of discovery, in this intoxicating technopoly called the twenty-first century.

Editorial Review:

In this witty, often terrifying work of cultural criticism, the author of Amusing Ourselves to Death chronicles our transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it--with radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, education, intelligence, and truth.