In essays covering everything from art and common sense to charisma and constructions of the self, the eminent cultural anthropologist and author of The Interpretation of Cultures deepens our understanding of human societies through the intimacies of "local knowledge." A companion volume to The Interpretation of Cultures, this book continues Geertz's exploration of the meaning of culture and the importance of shared cultural symbolism. With a new...

Using cultural anthropology to analyze debates that reverberate throughout the human sciences, George E. Marcus and Michael M. J. Fischer look closely at cultural anthropology's past accomplishments, its current predicaments, its future direction, and the insights it has to offer other fields of study. The result is a provocative work that is important for scholars interested in a critical approach to social science, art, literature, and history,...

George Dixon (1870-1908) was the finest boxer of his generation and arguably among the finest boxers ever. His accomplishments in the ring were extraordinary: the first Black boxing champion, the first champion of multiple weight classes, and the first champion to lose and regain the title. He defended his title more than any other champion and fought in an unprecedented 800 bouts. Making these achievements even more astonishing, George Dixon publicly...

Explains some traditions and customs of 26 African tribes beginning with letters from A to Z.

Kon-Tiki is the record of an astonishing adventure -- a journey of 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean by raft. Intrigued by Polynesian folklore, biologist Thor Heyerdahl suspected that the South Sea Islands had been settled by an ancient race from thousands of miles to the east, led by a mythical hero, Kon-Tiki. He decided to prove his theory by duplicating the legendary voyage. On April 28, 1947, Heyerdahl and five other adventurers sailed...

"Crime and Custom in Savage Society" represents Bronislaw Malinowski's major discussion of the relationship between law and society. Throughout his career he constructed a coherent science of anthropology, one modeled on the highest standards of practice and theory. Methodology steps forward as a core element of the refashioned anthropology, one that stipulates the manner in which anthropological data should be acquired. Malinowski's choice of law...

In this collection of essays, Clifford Geertz explores the nature of his anthropological work in relation to a broader public, serving as the foremost spokesperson of his generation of scholars, those who came of age after World War II. Geertz, who once considered a career in philosophy, begins by explaining how he got swept into the revolutionary movement of symbolic anthropology. At that point, his work began to encompass not only the ethnography...

"This unique, absorbing biography of the city brings to light its overlooked histories and diverse contemporary voices. In Jerusalem, what you see and what is true are two different things. The Old City has never had "four quarters" as its maps proclaim. And beyond the crush and frenzy of its major religious sites, many of its quarters are little known to visitors, its people ignored and their stories untold. Nine Quarters of Jerusalem lets the communities...

"The essays in this collection came about during the unhurried months when one who had traveled incessantly was obliged to stay still, even as events flared on all sides in a world that never stops moving. Wade Davis brings his unique cultural perspective to such varied topics as the demonization of coca, the sacred plant of the Inca; the Great War and the birth of modernity; the British conquest of Everest; the endless conflict in the Middle East;...

Doing Physics makes concepts of physics easier to grasp by relating them to everyday knowledge. Addressing some of the models and metaphors that physicists use to explain the physical world, Martin H. Krieger describes the conceptual world of physics by means of analogies to economics, anthropology, theater, carpentry, mechanisms such as clockworks, and machine tool design. The interaction of elementary particles or chemical species, for example,...