The origins and development of the modern American emergency stateFrom pandemic disease, to the disasters associated with global warming, to cyberattacks, today we face an increasing array of catastrophic threats.
From the New York Times to Gawker, a behind-the-scenes look at how performance analytics are transforming journalism today-and how they might remake other professions tomorrowJournalists today are inundated with data about which stories attract the most clicks, likes, comments, and shares.
By examining the ongoing tension between popular and official religion in Europe, this collection of essays contributes significantly to the continuing effort to understand the religious experience of ordinary people.
Racial Situations challenges perspectives on race that rely upon oft-repeated claims that race is culturally constructed and, hence, simply false and distorting.
An expansive look at how culture shapes our emotions-and how we can benefit, as individuals and a society, from less anger and more shameThe world today is full of anger.
At the outset of the twentieth century, the Nivkhi of Sakhalin Island were a small population of fishermen under Russian dominion and an Asian cultural sway.
In the 1980s, Jane Collier revisited a village in Andalusia, where she and others had conducted fieldwork twenty years earlier, to investigate changes in family relationships and to explore the larger question of the development of a "e;modern subjectivity"e; among the people.
The life and politics of an American Jewish activist who preached radical and violent means to Jewish survivalMeir Kahane came of age amid the radical politics of the counterculture, becoming a militant voice of protest against Jewish liberalism.
Finalist for the National Book AwardAn intimate reckoning with aquifer depletion in America's heartlandThe Ogallala aquifer has nourished life on the American Great Plains for millennia.
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 faithHow do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people-as if they were standing right next to them?
How evangelical activism in England contributes to the secularizing forces it seeks to challengeOver the past two decades, a growing number of Christians in England have gone to court to enforce their right to religious liberty.
The little-known history of public school teachers across the Arab worldand how they wielded an unlikely influence over the modern Middle EastToday, it is hard to imagine a time and place when public school teachers were considered among the elite strata of society.
An anthropologist's groundbreaking account of how Islamic religious authority is assembled through the unceasing labor of community building on the island of JavaThis compelling book draws on Ismail Fajrie Alatas's unique insights as an anthropologist to provide a new understanding of Islamic religious authority, showing how religious leaders unite diverse aspects of life and contest differing Muslim perspectives to create distinctly Muslim communities.
The first ethnographic exploration of the contentious debate over whether nonhuman primates are capable of cultureIn the 1950s, Japanese zoologists took note when a number of macaques invented and passed on new food-washing behaviors within their troop.
A remarkable look at an understudied feature of the Iranian justice system, where forgiveness is as much a right of victims as retributionIran's criminal courts are notorious for meting out severe sentencesaccording to Amnesty International, the country has the world's highest rate of capital punishment per capita.
In this book, the prominent theorist Partha Chatterjee looks at the creative and powerful results of the nationalist imagination in Asia and Africa that are posited not on identity but on difference with the nationalism propagated by the West.
A vivid look at China's shifting place in the global political economy of technology production How did China's mass manufacturing and "e;copycat"e; production become transformed, in the global tech imagination, from something holding the nation back to one of its key assets?
A vivid look at how India has developed the idea of entrepreneurial citizens as leaders mobilizing society and how people try to live that promiseCan entrepreneurs develop a nation, serve the poor, and pursue creative freedom, all while generating economic value?
An exploration of the interdisciplinary methods used to understand religious practiceReligion is commonly viewed as something that people practice, whether in the presence of others or alone.
How parents approach the task of passing on religious faith and practice to their childrenHow do American parents pass their religion on to their children?
Two pioneering anthropologists reveal how complexity science can help us better understand how societies change over timeOver the past two decades, anthropologist J.
An in-depth look at the people and institutions connected with the Itaipu Dam, the world's biggest producer of renewable energyHydropolitics is a groundbreaking investigation of the world's largest power plant and the ways the energy we use shapes politics and economics.
An important look at the hopeful rise and tragic defeat of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 began with immense hope, but was defeated in two and a half years, ushering in the most brutal and corrupt regime in modern Egyptian history.
A firsthand look at efforts to improve diversity in software and hackerspace communitiesHacking, as a mode of technical and cultural production, is commonly celebrated for its extraordinary freedoms of creation and circulation.
How craigslist champions openness, democracy, and other vanishing principles of the early webBegun by Craig Newmark as an e-mail to some friends about cool events happening around San Francisco, craigslist is now the leading classifieds service on the planet.
A history of how Chinese officials used statistics to define a new society in the early years of the People's Republic of China In 1949, at the end of a long period of wars, one of the biggest challenges facing leaders of the new People's Republic of China was how much they did not know.
Give and Take looks at local drug manufacturing in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, from the early 1980s to the present, to understand the impact of foreign aid on industrial development.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved, a fascinating look at the world of Christian women celebritiesSince the 1970s, an important new figure has appeared on the center stage of American evangelicalism-the celebrity preacher's wife.
A look at the revolution in game live streaming and esports broadcastingEvery day thousands of people broadcast their gaming live to audiences over the internet using popular sites such as Twitch, which reaches more than one hundred million viewers a month.
Financial Times Book of the YearTelegraph Top 50 Books of the YearGuardian Book of the YearNew Statesman Book of the Year'Roundly debunks racism's core lie - that inequality is to do with genetics, rather than political power' Reni Eddo-LodgeFor millennia, dominant societies have had the habit of believing their own people to be the best, deep down: the more powerful they become, the more power begins to be framed as natural, as well as cultural.
'Full of fun facts and trivia nuggets, perfect for lovers of all things quintessentially British' My WeeklyA compendium of extremely interesting and slightly strange true storiesDid you know that Hitler wanted to change the rules of cricket?
The noted cultural anthropologist and author of 'The Interpretation of Cultures' deepens our understanding of human societies through the intimacies of 'local knowledge.
From the author of THE PERFECT STORM and WAR comes a book about why men miss war, why Londoners missed the Blitz, and what we can all learn from American Indian captives who refused to go home.
'The who, what, where, when and how of human evolution, from one of the world's experts on the dating of prehistoric fossils' Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs 'Fascinating and entertaining.
DISCOVER HOW LIFE REALLY WORKS - ON EARTH AND IN SPACE 'A wonderfully insightful sidelong look at Earthly biology' Richard Dawkins'Crawls with curious facts' Sunday Times_________________________We are unprepared for the greatest discovery of modern science.
WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INSIGHT INVESTMENT SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE, JULY 2020How proteins, machine learning and molecular chemistry can teach us about the complexities of human behaviour and the world around usHow do we understand the people around us?
From the internationally renowned expert on celiac disease and director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University, here is the definitive book on gluten, uncovering the truth and explaining the science behind the current gluten-free craze.
