Showing titles in Anthropology

Brought to you by Penguin. A landmark exploration of women-led communities worldwide and what they can teach us about new ways to live, think and govern, from BBC global correspondent Megha Mohan. Society isn’t working for women - or any of us. But what if the rules were different? Imagine a...

In 1994 Professor Bryan Sykes, a leading world authority on DNA and human evolution, was called in to examine the frozen remains of a man trapped in glacial ice in northern Italy. News of both the Ice Man's discovery and his age, which was put at over 5,000 years, fascinated scientists and newspapers throughout the world. But what made Sykes's story particularly revelatory was his successful identification of a genetic descendant of the Ice Man, a woman living in Great Britain today. How was Sykes able to locate a living relative?

Lamorna Ash was raised with about as much Christianity as most people in Britain these days: a basic knowledge of hymns and prayers received via a Church of England primary school education; occasional brushes with religious services. But once she started writing about her two friends’ unexpected conversions, she began encountering a recurring phenomenon: in an age of disconnection and apathy, a new generation was discovering religion for itself.

In this classic work of economic history and social theory, Karl Polanyi analyzes the economic and social changes brought about by the great transformation of the Industrial Revolution. His analysis explains not only the deficiencies of the self-regulating market, but the potentially dire social consequences of untempered market capitalism. New introductory material reveals the renewed importance of Polanyi's seminal analysis in an era of globalization and free trade.

This classic on shamanism pioneered the modern shamanic renaissance. It is the foremost resource and reference on shamanism. Now, with a new introduction and a guide to current resources, anthropologist Michael Harner provides the definitive handbook on practical shamanism–what it is, where it came from, how you can participate.

We live in an age of anxiety, besieged by bad news and uncertainty. But Dan Walker, the host of BBC1's Breakfast and Football Focus, is determined to shine a light onto stories of selflessness and compassion that seldom make the headlines. In the course of his professional life, Dan has encountered many inspiring stories of bravery and kindness. In Remarkable People, he recounts tales of incredible humanity, empathy and compassion, and a steely determination to transform lives, restore trust and renew hope.

Brought to you by Penguin. Religion is both unique - as far as we can judge - and universal to humans. Our species diverged from the great apes about six to eight million years ago and since then, along with language, our propensity towards spiritual thinking and ritual emerged. How, when and...

Joe Mulhall knows what it’s like to stare fascism in the face. For a decade, often undercover at significant personal risk, he has investigated hate groups. He infiltrated a US white supremacist militia, set up a fake Ku Klux Klan branch, has been on countless street marches with violent far-right groups across Europe and got inside some of the most important ‘alt-right’ meetings ever held. Brazil, India and the US are still in thrall to authoritarian populism, and far-right views have become steadily normalised in mainstream politics. 

This collection of writings by Mark Fisher, author of the acclaimed Capitalist Realism, argues that we are haunted by futures that failed to happen. Fisher searches for the traces of these lost futures in the work of David Peace, John Le Carré, Christopher Nolan, Joy Division, Burial, and many others.

Every culture is a unique answer to a fundamental question: What does it mean to be human and alive? In The Wayfinders, renowned anthropologist, winner of the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize, and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis leads us on a thrilling journey to celebrate the wisdom of the world's indigenous cultures.

Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world - and a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the northern hemisphere. Through its ability to nurture trees, matsutake helps forests to grow in daunting places. It is also an edible delicacy in Japan, where it sometimes commands astronomical prices. In all its contradictions, matsutake offers insights into areas far beyond just mushrooms and addresses a crucial question: what manages to live in the ruins we have made?

Jodie Harsh arrived in London aged fifteen in 2001, heading straight off the train from Canterbury to her first club night at the Astoria. Intoxicated by this initial taste of city nightlife, she didn't leave the party for years, falling in with the right wrong people and exploring the sides of London best experienced under cover of darkness. Harsh grabs us by the hand and leads us back to those decadent times.

In Up the Youth Club, Emma Warren maps the shifting story of youth clubs in the UK and Northern Ireland, from factory workers in Victorian Boys' and Girls' clubs to renegade self-emancipatory spaces in the 1970s and the music-generating youth clubs of more recent decades. With a mixed lineage in church evangelism, the patronage of the upper classes, grassroots' DIY, and erratic state funding, the youth club has had a huge, yet almost invisible, effect on music, sport, culture and society.

In The WEIRDest People in the World, Joseph Henrich draws on cutting-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology to explore these questions and more. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. Mapping these shifts through ancient history and late antiquity, Henrich reveals that the most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church.

Harvard Medical School psychologist and Huffington Post blogger Craig Malkin addresses the "narcissism epidemic," by illuminating the spectrum of narcissism, identifying ways to control the trait, and explaining how too little of it may be a bad thing. "What is narcissism?" is one of the fastest...

As the tempo of change accelerates beyond anything our ancestors could have imagined, the ability to think clearly about what lies ahead has never been more important – yet we remain remarkably bad at it. So how might we think about the future with greater rigour? Could Should Might Don’t resists making cocksure prophecies and bombastic predictions, instead encouraging us to create more balanced, detailed and truthful versions of the future, so that we might improve what we leave behind for those who might follow.

'Among the most successful parenting resources of all time' iPaper 'A shining alternative to high-stress modern parenting, and families from New Delhi to New York will shout with joy' Heather Shumaker, author of It's OK Not to Share and It's OK to Go Up the Slide DISCOVER THE PARENTING SECRETS...

Brought to you by Penguin. From celebrated author Jay Griffiths comes a unique and heartfelt insight into the healing nature of our relationship with animals Pet-owners and animal-lovers instinctively know that animals heal. This book offers the evidence, drawing widely on scientific discoveries...

Financial Times Book of the Year Telegraph Top 50 Books of the Year Guardian Book of the Year New Statesman Book of the Year ‘Roundly debunks racism’s core lie – that inequality is to do with genetics, rather than political power’ Reni Eddo-Lodge For millennia, dominant societies have...

In The Talent Code, award-winning journalist Daniel Coyle draws on cutting-edge research to reveal that, far from being some abstract mystical power fixed at birth, ability really can be created and nurtured. In the process, he considers talent at work in venues as diverse as a music school in Dallas and a tennis academy near Moscow to demonstrate how the wiring of our brains can be transformed by the way we approach particular tasks.