Sociology and anthropology Books

In the age of search, keywords increasingly organize research, teaching, and even thought itself. Inspired by Raymond Williams's 1976 classic Keywords, the timely collection Digital Keywords gathers pointed, provocative short essays on more than two...

The hard work required to make god real, how it changes the people who do it, and why it helps explain the enduring power of faith How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people-as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see...

Music, and folk music in particular, is often embraced as a form of political expression, a vehicle for bridging or reinforcing social boundaries, and a valuable tool for movements reconfiguring the social landscape. Reds, Whites, and Blues examines the...

Recent decades have seen a dramatic shift away from social forms of gambling played around roulette wheels and card tables to solitary gambling at electronic terminals. Slot machines, revamped by ever more compelling digital and video technology, have...

Most people in the world today think democracy and gender equality are good, and that violence and wealth inequality are bad. But most people who lived during the 10,000 years before the nineteenth century thought just the opposite. Drawing on...

As countless love songs, movies, and self-help books attest, men and women have long sought different things. The result? Seemingly inevitable conflict. Yet we belong to the most cooperative species on the planet. Isn't there a way we can use this...

Autism has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, thanks to dramatically increasing rates of diagnosis, extensive organizational mobilization, journalistic coverage, biomedical research, and clinical innovation. Understanding Autism, a...

Political science and sociology increasingly rely on mathematical modeling and sophisticated data analysis, and many graduate programs in these fields now require students to take a "math camp" or a semester-long or yearlong course to acquire the...

Identity Economics provides an important and compelling new way to understand human behavior, revealing how our identities--and not just economic incentives--influence our decisions. In 1995, economist Rachel Kranton wrote future Nobel Prize-winner...

On April 26, 1986, Unit Four of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in then Soviet Ukraine. More than 3.5 million people in Ukraine alone, not to mention many citizens of surrounding countries, are still suffering the effects. Life Exposed is the...

The American military base on the island of Diego Garcia is one of the most strategically important and secretive U.S. military installations outside the United States. Located near the remote center of the Indian Ocean and accessible only by military...

Networks of relationships help determine the careers that people choose, the jobs they obtain, the products they buy, and how they vote. The many aspects of our lives that are governed by social networks make it critical to understand how they impact...

Mathematical models and computer simulations of complex social systems have become everyday tools in sociology. Yet until now, students had no up-to-date textbook from which to learn these techniques. Introduction to Mathematical Sociology fills this...

On the night of the 2000 presidential election, Americans watched on television as polling results divided the nation's map into red and blue states. Since then the color divide has become symbolic of a culture war that thrives on...

An authoritative overview of the concepts and applications of biological demographyThis book provides a comprehensive introduction to biodemography, an exciting interdisciplinary field that unites the natural science of biology with the social science of...

Is all human behaviour based on self-interest? Many social and biological theories would argue so, but such a perspective does not explain the many truly herioc acts committed by people willing to risk their lives in order to help others. In "The Heart...

How does an ethnographer write about violence? How can he make sense of violent acts, for himself and for his readers, without compromising its sheer excess and its meaning-defying core? How can he remain a scholarly observer when the country of his...

Combining great learning, interpretative originality, analytical sensitivity, and a charismatic prose style, Clifford Geertz has produced a lasting body of work with influence throughout the humanities and social sciences, and remains the foremost...

Life today for citizens of the developed world is safer, easier, and healthier than for any other people in history thanks to modern medicine, science, technology, and intelligence. So why is an epidemic of fear sweeping America? The answer, according to...

Back in print after thirty years, this is a classic collection of Chomsky essays. It is particularly valuable as the first of Chomsky's works to fully demonstrate his power as a political thinker. In his biting critiques of American foreign policy, the...

This book traces the history of the camel from its origins millions of years ago through to the present day, discussing such matters of current concern as the plight of camel herders in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, the alarming increase in the...

This groundbreaking book by the acclaimed Dorothy Roberts examines how the myth of biological concept of race-revived by purportedly cutting-edge science, race-specific drugs, genetic testing, and DNA databases-continues to undermine a just society and...

How the largest social movement in history is making the world a better place.

Originally published separately,Weber's "Science as a Vocation" and "Politics as a Vocation" stand as the classic formulations of his positions on two related subjects that go to the heart of his thought: the nature and status of science and its claims...

Perhaps Studs Terkel's best-known book, Working is a compelling, fascinating look at jobs and the people who do them. Consisting of over one hundred interviews conducted with everyone from gravediggers to studio heads, this book provides a timeless...

"Island of Bali" is now available with a foreword by Professor Adrian Vickers which puts the book into context for a modern audience. First published in 1937, "Island of Bali" is still regarded by many as the most authoritative text on Bali and its...

American society has become anti-male. Men are sensing the backlash and are consciously and unconsciously going "on strike." They are dropping out of college, leaving the workforce and avoiding marriage and fatherhood at alarming rates. The trend is so...

This is the first English translation of a controversial Japanese best seller that made the public aware of the social problem of hikikomori, or "withdrawal"-a phenomenon estimated by the author to involve as many as one million Japanese adolescents and...

The blockbuster best seller Primal Leadership introduced us to "resonant" leaders--individuals who manage their own and others' emotions in ways that drive success. Leaders everywhere recognized the validity of resonant leadership, but struggled with how...

John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction, now available in paperback, focuses on mechanisms of traditional education that cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a byproduct of rote-memorization...

Assisted dying is perhaps one of the most divisive issues of the modern age, generating endless headlines and moral debates. Published in conjunction with the organization Dignity in Dying, this important new book provides a forum...

In thisremarkable and often dazzling book, Paul Carter explores the conditions for sociabilityin a globalized future. He argues that we make many assumptions about communicationbut overlook barriers to understanding between strangers as well as the...

Time poverty is a problem for many Australian households and work is the main culprit. Australians start work young, and we are working more, and longer into old age. While maximising our productivity and enhancing our professional skills, we must also...

Australian universities are not happy places. Despite the shiny rhetoric of excellence, quality, innovation and creativity, universities face a barrage of criticism over claims of declining standards, decreased funding, compromised assessment, increased...

Dogs are perhaps our most popular pets, and certainly one of the best-lovedof all animals. This book unravels the debate about whether dogs are descended from wolves, and moves on to deal with canines in mythology, religion and health, dog cults in...

In The Japanese Mind, Roger Davies offers Westerners an insightful guide to understanding the unique aspects of Japanese culture.Readers of this book will develop a comprehensive grasp of Japanese society and the core values that remain at its foundation...

Shortlisted for the Blake Dawson Prize for Business LiteratureImmediate, intimate, portable and inexpensive, radio is the most pervasive medium in Australia. Changing Stations is the first full-scale, national history of commercial radio in Australia,...

Featuring full-color photographs and illustrations throughout, this text is a comprehensive guide to Japanese culture. The richness of Japan's history is renowned worldwide. The heritage of culture that its society has produced and passed on to future...

Ana and her son, Philippe, are grieving the loss of Philippe's father when Ana's hairstylist Kimi dies in an apparent suicide. Driven by a force she doesn't understand, Ana starts digging into Kimi's past in Guyana in 1978, which leads to nested tales of...

A unique and definitive reader on our "national passion"-buying stuff-and its consequences for American society. We are citizens, owners and workers, believers and heathens, but today more than anything else we are consumers. How this came to be and its...

A Brief History of Nakedness traces humanity's preoccupation with nudity in three distinct areas of human endeavour: religion, politics and popular culture. Rather than studying the history of the nude in art or photography, or detailing the ways in...

Powerful and universal retellings of seventy-eight divine stories, legends, and myths from around the world, each accompanied by a gorgeous illustration from acclaimed artist Yoshi Yoshitani.  Many of the lessons we learn are shared stories passed among...

A compelling exploration of generational divides informed by exclusive studies from around the world, by the author of The Perils of Perception. 'Subtle and compelling.' - Observer 'One of the best books of 2021.' - The Times Are we in the middle of a...

As Mary Malbunka shares her stories of playing with friends, building cubby houses, climbing trees, collecting sugarbag, digging for honey ants, hunting for lizards, and learning about the seasons, animals and plants, she creates a vivid picture of a...

On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss

Learn about how we organise our society in The Sociology Book. Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Sociology in this overview guide to the subject,...

An examination of the contemporary medicalization of death and dying that calls us to acknowledge instead death's existential and emotional realities. Death is a natural, inevitable, and deeply human process, and yet Western medicine tends to view it as...