Showing titles in Anthropology

Two million years ago, Africa: A skinny, long-limbed creature who walks on two legs, can’t sprint, and has no weapons turns away from his under-nourished friends, and runs down a much stronger antelope. Dinner. Over succeeding generations, this creature evolves into one of the best distance runners on the planet: the human being. Yet in the age of modernity, we find ourselves unable to run without more than half of us suffering injury. This book looks at the injury epidemic in running and what the barefoot running movement believes are the causes of injury.

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. 

For all that science knows about the living world, notes David P. Barash, there are even more things we don't know, genuine evolutionary mysteries that perplex the best minds in biology. Paradoxically, many of these mysteries are very close to home, involving some of the most personal aspects of being human. Homo Mysterious examines a number of these evolutionary mysteries, exploring things we don't yet know about ourselves, laying out the best current hypotheses, and pointing toward insights that scientists are just beginning to glimpse. 

When an unexpected medical crisis sends Naomi Wolf on a deeply personal journey to tease out the intersections between sexuality and creativity, she discovers, much to her own astonishment, an increasing body of scientific evidence that suggests that the vagina is not merely flesh, but an intrinsic component of the female brain - and thus has a fundamental connection to female consciousness itself.

Why didn't the ancient Greeks or Romans wear pants? How did they shave? How likely were they to drink fine wine, use birth control, or survive surgery? In a series of short and humorous essays, Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants explores some of the questions about the Greeks and Romans that ancient historian Garrett Ryan has answered in the classroom and online. Unlike most books on the classical world, the focus is not on famous figures or events, but on the fascinating details of daily life.

Bloomsbury presents On the Trail of Genghis Khan by Tim Cope, read by Dugald Bruce-Lockhart. The relationship between man and horse on the Eurasian steppe gave rise to a succession of rich nomadic cultures. Among them were the Mongols of the thirteenth century – a small tribe, which, under the...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AN INDIE BESTSELLER “One of the great thinkers of our generation . . . I feel fresher and smarter and happier for sitting down with her.”—Jameela Jamil, iWeigh Podcast The co-host of the Maintenance Phase podcast and creator of Your Fat Friend equips you with...

In The Ocean in the School, Rick Bonus tells the stories of Pacific Islander students as they and their allies struggled to transform a university they believed did not value their presence.

Afghanistan traces the historic struggles and the changing nature of political authority in this volatile region of the world, from the Mughal Empire in the 16th century to the Taliban resurgence today. Thomas Barfield introduces listeners to the bewildering diversity of tribal and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, explaining what unites them as Afghans despite the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them.

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?

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.

Brought to you by Penguin. A beguiling cultural history of colour by the BAFTA nominated broadcaster and art historian James Fox The subject of this book is humankind's extraordinary relationship with colour. It is composed of a series of voyages, ranging across the world and throughout history...

We work because we have to, but also because we like it: from hunting-gathering over 700,000 years ago to the present era of zoom meetings, humans have always worked to make the world around them serve their needs. Jan Lucassen provides an inclusive history of humanity's busy labor throughout the ages. Spanning China, India, Africa, the Americas, and Europe, Lucassen looks at the ways in which humanity organizes work: in the household, the tribe, the city, and the state. 

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...

Here, for the first time, is a collection of short speeches by the charismatic doctor and social activist Paul Farmer. One of the most passionate and influential voices for global health equity and social justice, Farmer encourages young people to tackle the greatest challenges of our times. Engaging, often humorous, and always inspiring, these speeches bring to light the brilliance and force of Farmer's vision in a single, accessible volume.

From birth to death, human beings are hardwired to connect to other human beings. Face-to-face contact matters: tight bonds of friendship and love heal us, help children learn, extend our lives, and make us happy. Looser in-person bonds matter too, combining with our close relationships to form a personal "village" around us, one that exerts unique effects.

Bloomsbury presents On Our Best Behaviour written and read by Elise Loehnen. *THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* 'A stunning, big and bold encyclopedia of how to live' LISA TADDEO 'Astute, radical and utterly compelling' KATHERINE MAY 'You will finish this book and immediately hand your copy...

Brought to you by Penguin. A radical argument that we are living on the wrong clock, one that tells us time is money, and that embracing a new concept of time can open us up to bold, hopeful possibilities from the New York Times bestselling author of How to Do Nothing. Our daily experience...

Bloomsbury presents To the Limit by Michael Crawley, read by Raj Ghatak 'A fascinating and multilayered exploration of what it means to endure' Alex Hutchinson, author of Endure The author of Out of Thin Air, winner of the Margaret Mead Award 2022, journeys through different cultures to find out...

In the past the elders had encyclopaedic memories. They could name all the animals and plants across the landscape and the stars in the sky, too. Yet most of us struggle to memorise more than a short poem. Using traditional Aboriginal Australian songlines as the key, Lynne Kelly has identified the powerful memory technique used by indigenous people around the world.