Culture, behavior, and personality

LeVine, Robert Alan

Aldine Pub. Co.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Underlying the anthropological study of man is the principle that there is a reality to which man must adapt if he is to survive. Reproduce, and to perpetuate himself. Populations must adapt to the realities of the physical world and maintain a proper "fit" between their biological makeup and the pressures of the various niches of the world in which they seek to live. Social groups―where culture is found―must develop adaptive mechanisms in the organization of their social relations if there is to be order, regularity, and predictability in patterns of cooperation and competition and if they are to survive as viable units. This three-volume set of readings presents an introduction to anthropology that is unified and made systematic by focus on adaptations that have accompanied the evolution of man, from non-human primate to inhabitant of vast urban areas in modern industrial societies.Man in Adaptation: The Cultural Present introduces Cultural Anthropoloty also from the point of view of adaptation and provides coherence for the study of human societies from man's social beginnings to the present. The book deals sequentially with the more and more complex technologies and political and social structures that have enabled different societies to make effective use of the energy potentials in their habitats.This and the two companion volumes are the first attempt to unify the disparate subject matter of anthropology within a single and powerful explanatory framework. They incorporate the work of the most renowned anthropological experts on man, and they illuminate clearly one of the most important concepts around which one can build an investigation of the nature and scope of anthropology itself. For these reasons, they are recognized as indispensable reading for every professional anthropologist and as perhaps the best available means of introducing new students to the field.

Man in adaptation;: The cultural present

Cohen, Yehudi A.

Athapaskan adaptations: hunters and fishermen of the subarctic forests (Worlds of man: studies in cultural ecology)

descriptions of the adaptive strategies of native Canadians to deal with the harsh conditions in the extreme north, bw illustrations

Science & Math

VanStone, James W.

Biological Sciences

Nomads of the nomads: The Āl Murrah Bedouin of the Empty Quarter (Worlds of man)

Cole, Donald Powell

Contact and clash, amalgamation and accommodation, resistance and change have marked the history of the Caribbean islands. It is a unique region where people under the stress of slavery had to improvise, invent and literally create forms of human association through which their pasts and the symbolic interpretation of their present could be structured.Caribbean Transformations is divided into three major parts, each preceded by a brief introductory chapter. Part One begins with a look at the African antecedents of the Caribbean, then discusses slavery and the plantation system. Two chapters deal with slavery and forced labor in Puerto Rico and the history of a Puerto Rican plantation. Part Two is concerned with the rise of a Caribbean peasantry--the erstwhile slaves who separated themselves from the plantation system on small plots of land. This creative adaptation led to the growth of a class of rural landowners producing a large part of their own subsistence but also selling to and buying from wider markets. Mintz first discusses the origins of reconstructed peasantries, and then proceeds to the specifics of the origins and history of the peasantry in Jamaica. Part Three turns to Caribbean nationhood--the political and economic forces that affected its shaping and the social structure of its component societies. A separate chapter details the case of Haiti. The book ends with a critique of the implications of Caribbean nationhood from an anthropological perspective, stressing the ways that class, color and other social dimensions continue to play important parts in the organization of Caribbean societies.Caribbean Transformations--lucidly written and presenting broad coverage of both time and space--is essential reading for anthropologists, sociologists, historians and all others interested in the Caribbean, in black studies, in colonial problems, in the relationships between colonial areas and the imperial powers, and in culture change generally.

Caribbean transformations

Politics & Social Sciences

Mintz, Sidney Wilfred

Social Sciences

The traditional South Indian village pictures the entire universe as an entity in which all living things and human beings play a necessary and effective role. The stability of this worldview is based on a close relationship among human beings, grain crops, and cattle, which has permitted the continuous exploitation of agricultural lands over several centuries. Taken as a whole, the life of South Indian villagers represents a subtle and complicated adaptation to complex and variable environmental circumstances. It now faces the challenge of adjusting to modernization.After a fascinating description of the traditional South Indian worldview, Alan R. Beals describes the settlement patterns and social structures that characterize village life, the agricultural technology and ecology, and the techniques of population regulation that have traditionally operated to maintain appropriate man-to-land ratios. He then explains the relationships among villages, including marriage and economic exchanges, and the omnipresent influence of hierarchies of caste and social ranking.Over the past 2,000 years, South Indian civilization has undergone constant change and modification. Empires have risen and fallen, famine and plague have swept the land, and cities have been built and forgotten. But through all these years of change, the traditional South Indian village has maintained its basic character, adjusting to a variety of environments and countless conquests, yet always adhering to a single basic pattern of life. Village Life in South India, originally published in 1974, provides the reader not only with a still-valid description of a particular and distinctive way of life, but also with an explanation of how life is explained in ecological theory.

Village life in South India: cultural design and environmental variation (Worlds of man)

History

Beals, Alan R.

Asia

Corporations and society: The social anthropology of collective action

Smith, M.G.

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