Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Anthropology

Fifty thousand years ago, we were not the only species of human in the world. There were at least four others, including the Neanderthals, Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonesis and the Denisovans. At the forefront of the latter's ground-breaking discovery was Oxford Professor Tom Higham. In The World Before Us, he explains the scientific and technological advancements.

Speeches of Note is a celebration of oratory old, new and unspoken. It is an obsessively curated, richly illustrated and sumptuously produced collection of speeches from throughout the ages. Some are surprising, inspiring, hilarious; others are moving, comforting, enlightening. Some of these speeches changed the course of history; others are all but unknown, even undelivered to this day, such as the chilling public announcement to be made by President Nixon should Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become stranded on the moon. All are extraordinary.

We are unprepared for the greatest discovery of modern science. Scientists are confident that there is alien life across the universe yet we have not moved beyond our perception of 'aliens' as Hollywood stereotypes. The time has come to abandon our fixation on alien monsters and place our expectations on solid scientific footing. Using his own expert understanding of life on earth and Darwin's theory of evolution - which applies throughout the universe - Cambridge zoologist Dr Arik Kershenbaum explains what alien life must be like.

Chinese was the first truly global cuisine. When the first Chinese labourers began to sojourn and settle abroad, restaurants appeared in their wake. Yet Chinese has the curious distinction of being both one of the world's best-loved food cultures and one of the least understood. For more than a century, the overwhelming dominance of a simplified form of Cantonese cooking has ensured that few foreigners experienced anything of the richness or sophistication of China's local food traditions - but today that is beginning to change.

In Wisdom of the Ancients, Neil Oliver takes us back in time to grab hold of the ideas buried in forgotten cultures and early civilisations. From Laetoli footprints in Tanzania to Keralan rituals, stone circles and cave paintings, Oliver takes us on a global journey through antiquity. A master storyteller, drawing on immense knowledge of our ancient past, he distils this wisdom into 12 messages that have endured the test of time and invites us to consider how these might apply to our lives today. The result is powerful and inspirational, moving and profound.

As the BBC's North America Editor, Jon Sopel has had a pretty busy time of it lately. In the 18 months it's taken for a reality star to go from laughingstock to leader of the free world, Jon has travelled the length and breadth of the United States, experiencing it from a perspective that most of us could only dream of: he has flown aboard Air Force One, interviewed President Obama and has even been described as 'a beauty' by none other than Donald Trump.

Hygiene prevents the spread of disease and saves countless lives. But in recent decades, rather than safeguarding us from illness, an obsession with ‘cleanliness’ seems to have been having the opposite effect. As we are now starting to realise, our overuse of soap, sanitisers and untested, misleading skin-care products is doing untold damage to our skin’s vital microbial layer, which influences everything from acne, eczema and dry skin to how we smell. 

Travellers often become enchanted with the first country that captures their hearts and gives them license to be free. For Wade Davis, it was Colombia. In this masterful new book, he revisits the mighty Magdalena, the river that made possible the nation. Along the way, he finds a people who have overcome years of conflict precisely because of their character, informed by an enduring spirit of place, and a deep love of a land that is home to the greatest ecological and geographical diversity on the planet.  

In Hope and Glory, Stuart goes in search of the places, people and events of the century we have just left behind that have shaped the look and character of modern Britain. From the death of Victoria to the demise of New Labour, he takes a single event from each decade of the 20th century that offers up a defining moment in our history and then goes in search of its legacy today.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Flirtology, written and read by Jean Smith. How can I tell when someone is flirting with me? How can I be a more confident flirt? How do I avoid rejection? Where are all the good men and women hiding? Flirtology is the dating guide for the 21st century. In an age of swiping left and right and hiding behind online profiles, this audiobook shows you how to replace connectivity with connection.

The subject of this audiobook is humankind's extraordinary relationship with colour. It is composed of a series of voyages, ranging across the world and throughout history, which reveal the meanings that have been attached to the colours we see around us and the ways these have shaped our culture and imagination. It takes seven primary colours - black, red, yellow, blue, white, purple and green - and uncovers behind each a root idea, based on visual resemblances or properties so rudimentary as to be common to all societies.

Brought to you by Penguin. The songlines are the invisible pathways that criss-cross Australia, ancient tracks connecting communities and following ancient boundaries. Along these lines Aboriginals passed the songs which revealed the creation of the land and the secrets of its past. In this magical account Chatwin recalls his travels across the length and breadth of Australia seeking to find the truth about the songs and unravel the mysteries of their stories.      

Is your workplace riven by tribal conflict? Are your meetings governed by dozens of unspoken rituals? Is there something faintly religious about the way your colleagues worship the CEO? If so, then you might need a lesson in business anthropology. For a century, anthropologists have had an unusual method: immersing themselves deep inside 'alien' tribes and uncovering, from the inside, how they tick. Today, a new generation of anthropologists are using this approach to explain modern businesses - revealing the hidden rituals that define what we buy, who we sell to and how we work.

This audiobook will introduce you to ten people. In a way, you already know them. Only you don't - not really. In a sense, they are you. Only they're not entirely. They inform and shape the most important decisions in your life. But you're almost certainly unaware of their intervention. They are the Ten Types of Human. Who are they? What are they for? How did they get into your head? We want to believe that there are some things we would never do. We want to believe that there are others we always would. But how can we be sure?

Drawing on startling new evidence from the mapping of the genome, an explosive new account of the genetic basis of race and its role in the human story Fewer ideas have been more toxic or harmful than the idea of the biological reality of race, and with it the idea that humans of different races...

For over a century we saw Neanderthals as inferior to Homo Sapiens. After new discoveries, the pendulum swung the other way and they are generally seen as our relatives: not quite human, but similar enough, and still not equal. Now, thanks to an ongoing revolution in palaeoanthropology in which he has played a key part, Ludovic Slimak shows us that they are something altogether different - and they should be understood on their own terms rather than by comparing them to ourselves. As he reveals in this stunning book, the Neanderthals had their own history, their own rituals, their own customs.

It's exhausting being Irish. The constant self-flagellation is enough to put anybody off their breakfast. Why are we so hard on ourselves? Is it the postcolonial overhang following centuries of oppression at the hands of a litany of foreign invaders? Or is it collective guilt for sending Westlife out into the wider world? In Surviving Ireland, acclaimed comedy writer Colm Tobin takes the listener by the hand for a satirical romp through modern Irish life.

Think of the way you keep up quirky family traditions. How listening to a certain song before speaking in public can calm you down. Or why it feels so strange to sleep on the opposite side of the bed. These are rituals: practices that are imbued with symbolic meaning. And they have the power to turn black-and-white moments into technicolour. Harvard professor and world-leading rituals expert Michael Norton uses his cutting-edge research to show the impact that these everyday actions have on our lives -- and how transforming habits into rituals can give us purpose and pleasure.

In his million-copy bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. Now in this brilliant companion volume, Diamond probes the other side of the equation: What...

One of the world's leading anthropologists reveals how our evolutionary past informed the birth and rise of global civilisation. Unveiling a visionary new way of studying human history - one that stunningly weaves together experimental psychology, anthropology and quantitative social science - Harvey Whitehouse uncovers the three evolutionary biases that shape our social behaviour: conformism, religiosity and tribalism.