History & Philosophy Books - Page 4

Anthropological Studies of Religion: An Introductory Text

Brian Morris

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A good introduction 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I just finished reading this book as a starting point for a larger research project into the anthropological perspective on religion and found it to be a useful and in-depth introduction. This is not a "for beginners" book and Morris does not talk down to the reader. Morris provides a broad overview of important perspectives on religion from sociologists (Marx, Weber, Durkheim), anthropologists (Turner, Levi-Strauss, Malinowski, Douglas), and even covering, although pretty critically, the psychoanalytic interpretations of Freud and Jung. This is a good, comprehensive introduction that gives a general overview and deals with the criticisms of a flaws in the theories covered.

Editorial Review:

In this important, scholarly, and wide-ranging text, Brian Morris provides a lucid outline of the nature of the explanations of religious phenomena offered by such great thinkers as Hegel, Marx, and Weber. In doing so he also unravels the many theoretical strategies in the study of religion that have been developed and explored by later anthropologists. Besides discussing the classical authors and the debates surrounding their work, Morris presents perceptive accounts of more contemporary scholars such as Jung, Malinowski, Levi-Strauss, Geertz, and Godelier. Written from the standpoint of critical sympathy, and free of jargon, this book is an invaluable guide to the writings on religion of all the major figures in anthropology.

Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture

Marvin Harris

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

One of the most important books of the 20th Century 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 13 people found this review helpful.

This book will eventually be recognized as one of the most important of the 20th Century - but not until the 21st Century. In spite of what the previous reviewer said, it does indeed deal with male supremacy - and Cultural Materialism's explanation for male dominance is something that feminists should learn and understand, if they want to do something to end male supremacy.

Editorial Review:

Cultural Materialism, published in 1979, was Marvin Harris's first full-length explication of the theory with which his work has been associated. While Harris has developed and modified some of his ideas over the past two decades, generations of professors have looked to this volume as the essential starting point for explaining the science of culture to students. Now available again after a hiatus, this edition of "Cultural Materialism" contains the complete text of the original book plus a new introduction by Harris (with B.J. Brown) that updates his ideas and examines the impact that the book and theory have had on anthropological theorizing.

A Franz Boas Reader: The Shaping of American Anthropology, 1883-1911 (Midway Reprint)

Franz Boas

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

An important book in studying the history of anthropology 4 out of 5 stars.
10 of 11 people found this review helpful.

This is an important book to own if you are interested in the history of anthropology. As the title of the book implies, this is a selection of his works written between 1883 and 1911.
It was in these years that Boas was most influential in shaping American anthropology. Stocking the editor, selected from Boas' letters, journal articles, lectures and
books written in this 28 year span. The result is that the reader can access Boas' writings
on:
1.) The history and development of anthropology.
2.) The problems (both theoritical and methodological) in evolutionism, folklore and physical anthropology.
3.) How ethnographic fieldwork and linguistics should be done.
4.) The idea of race/races in anthropology.
5.) The social role of anthropology in American society.
Stocking's selections allow the reader to view the development of anthropology in the United States, plus provide insights into Boas as a person. The short essays
written by Stocking before each section help place the selections in their historical context. Interestingly, several of the issues Boas
grappled with---race as just one example---are still debated and contested by anthropologists today.

Editorial Review:

"The Shaping of American Anthropology is a book which is outstanding in many respects. Stocking is probably the leading authority on Franz Boas; he understands Boas's contributions to American anthropology, as well as anthropology in general, very well. . . . He is, in a word, the foremost historian of anthropology in the world today. . . . The reader is both a collection of Boas's papers and a solid 23-page introduction to giving the background and basic assumptions of Boasian anthropology."—David Schneider, University of Chicago

"While Stocking has not attempted to present a person biography, nevertheless Boas's personal characteristics emerge not only in his scholarly essays, but perhaps more vividly in his personal correspondence. . . . Stocking is to be commended for collecting this material together in a most interesting and enjoyable reader."—Gustav Thaiss, American Anthropologist

Victorian Anthropology

George Stocking

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Life Before Darwin 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Stocking's "Victorian Anthropolgy" proves that there was life before Darwin. The book begins with an overview of anthropological theories, both in England and in Europe, and examines how political influences determined which of these were accepted by English scholars. Fixed firmly in the context of Victorian England, Stocking clearly shows the extent to which anthropological treatises influenced not only scientific thought but also social policy. An informative and enlightening book, "Victorian Anthropology" would be particularly useful to students of British cultural and/or anthropological history.

A great book goes out of print.. 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I had Stocking as a professor, and we read this book in his course on British anthropology. This is probably my single favorite book on anthropology, and I can't believe it has gone out of print! Anyway, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in cultural anthropology. More importantly, to students & professors interested in the formative years of anthropology, and ethnography, this book is a must own. Stocking's other books are not bad, although they tend to be collections of essays and are rather hit or miss, depending on your interests. Victorian Anthropology is his magnum opus. Hopefully it gets reissued one day.

Neandertals, The: Changing the Image of Mankind

Erik Trinkaus

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Editorial Review:

A look at Neandertals, a phase of human evolution, discusses their qualities and how they were discovered, debated, studied, and analyzed over the years, describing the digs in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. 15,000 first printing.

A Theory of Race

Joshua Glasgow

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Editorial Review:

Social commentators have long asked whether racial categories should be conserved or eliminated from our practices, discourse, institutions, and perhaps even private thoughts. In A Theory of Race, Joshua Glasgow argues that this set of choices unnecessa...

What Does It Mean to Be Human?: Reverence for Life Reaffirmed by Responses from Around the World

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

A book to read again and again 5 out of 5 stars.
16 of 16 people found this review helpful.

There are very few books I know I will ever go through the effort of rereading. This book is one which can be picked up time and time again, for a quick reconnection to our human condition. People from around the globe with differing backgrounds offer their opinions on what it means to them to be human. The overall message of this book is one that has been heard before but few people have heeded; namely that humanity needs to relinquish greed and reconnect with its spiritual nature to allow us to realize our full potential as a species. A very difficult task indeed in our consumer based economy. The writers realize this and demonstrate that it is possible to be true to our human nature. I continue to lend this book to anyone who can appreciate the meaning and depth behind the words.

Editorial Review:

In an inspirational act of faith and hope, nearly one hundred contributors--social activists, thinkers, artists and spiritual leaders--reflect with poignant candor on our shared human condition and attempt to define a core set of human values in our rapidly changing socity.

Contributors include:
* The Dalai Lama
* Wilma Mankiller
* Oscar Arias
* Jimmy Carter
* Cornel West
* Jack Miles
* Mother Teresa
* Nancy Willard
* Elie Wiesel
* James Earl Jones
* Joan Chittister
* Mary Evelyn Tucker
* Vaclav Havel
* Archbishop Desmund Tutu

What Does It Mean To Be Human? is a vital meditation on the endless possibilities of our humanity.

Anthropology and Religion: What We Know, Think, and Question

Robert L. Winzeler

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Editorial Review:

Drawing from ethnographic examples found throughout the world, this text covers what anthropologists know or think about religion, how they have studied it, and how they interpret or explain it. A key text for students of upper division courses in the anthropological study of religion.

The Sacred and the Feminine: Imagination and Sexual Difference (New Encounters: Arts, Cultures, Concepts)

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Editorial Review:

NEW SERIES ANNOUNCEMENT

New Encounters: Arts, Cultures, Concepts

Series Editor: Griselda Pollock

This timely new series, with eminent art historian and cultural analyst Griselda Pollock as series editor, brings together major international commentators and also introduces a new generation of emerging scholars.
Resisting both the rejection of theory and the current displacement of art history in favour of visual culture, New Encounters instead rejuvenate both approaches. Marked out by its critical engagement with and close informed readings of images, texts and cultural events, this series employs new feminist, postcolonial and queer perspectives. New Encounters also showcases exciting new volumes which revisit key figures in twentieth century art through highly original feminist approaches.

 

The notion of a special intimacy between "the feminine and the sacred" has received significant attention since the publication of Julia Kristeva and Cathérine Clément’s famous ecumenical "conversation" of the same name which focused on the relationship between meaning and the body at whose interface the feminine is positioned. Brought to the wider public as the "sacred feminine", it has also made its mark on popular culture. Taking up the debate and moving beyond anthropology or theology, writers from varied ethnic, geo-cultural and religious perspectives here join with secular cultural analysts to explore the sacred and the feminine in art, architecture, literature, art history, music, philosophy, theology, critical theory and cultural studies. The book addresses key issues in feminist questions of creativity, the imaginary and the sacred as "otherness", exploring the ways in which visual practices have explored this rich, contested and highly charged territory.

Defacement: Public Secrecy and the Labor of the Negative

Michael Taussig

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Editorial Review:

Defacement asks what happens when something precious is despoiled. It begins with the notion that such activity is attractive in its very repulsion, and that it creates something sacred even in the most secular of societies and circumstances. In specifying the human face as the ideal type for thinking through such violation, this book raises the issue of secrecy as the depth that seems to surface with the tearing of surface. This surfacing is made all the more subtle and ingenious, not to mention everyday, by the deliberately partial exposures involved in “the public secret”—defined as what is generally known but, for one reason or another, cannot easily be articulated.

Arguing that this sort of knowledge (“knowing what not to know”) is the most powerful form of social knowledge, Taussig works with ideas and motifs from Nietzsche, William Burroughs, Elias Canetti, Georges Bataille, and the ethnography of unmasking in so-called primitive societies in order to extend his earlier work on mimesis and transgression. Underlying his concern with defacement and the public secret is the search for a mode of truth telling that unmasks, but only to reenchant, thereby underlining Walter Benjamin’s notion that “truth is not a matter of exposure of the secret, but a revelation that does justice to it.”