Best anthropology books according to redditors
We found 221 Reddit comments discussing the best anthropology books. We ranked the 108 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 221 Reddit comments discussing the best anthropology books. We ranked the 108 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
There is an argument using evolutionary theory that agriculture was only adopted to increase group fitness at the cost of indivual fitness.
Lots of civilisation diseases started with the adoption of agriculture.
So there is the argument that agriculture made civilisation possible but at the cost of pure indivual strength and physical prowess.
There is lots of evidence that early agricultural societies had less than healthy members compared to hunter gatherers.
When you think about it, the indivual skills of a warrior in a large army is less important than pure numbers, most armies in the past were farmers called to war once a year, and yet the prevailed most of the time against nomad societies whos way of life made them formidable indivual warriors like the steppe people, just by numbers alone.
Edit:
If someone is interested where these theories come from, I recommend these books:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0452288193/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0452288193
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0996139516/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0996139516
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Our-Success-Evolution-Domesticating/dp/0691178437/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=joseph+henrich&qid=1558984106&s=gateway&sprefix=joseph+henr&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.com/Not-Genes-Alone-Transformed-Evolution/dp/0226712125/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=not+by+genes+alone&qid=1558984151&s=gateway&sprefix=Not+by+ge&sr=8-1
Yes, obviously. Perception IS reality in people's minds. And when people are acting on false and extremely negative information, it can lead to racial discrimination, attacks, fear, hate, and even war. Look at what lots of people believe.
Tibetan genocide
Uyghur cultural genocide
Eating dogs is widespread
Steals hundreds of billions in ip each year
China's state subsidies to companies are unfair [this is common among numerous Western nations]
T square massacre
OBOR Debt trap
China is a colonizer
China is just as bad as America [https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md]
Live organ harvesting
Huawei is a spying system
etc
On top of that
America is NOT an empire so we don't need to worry where it goes [http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-State-Guide-Worlds-Superpower/dp/1567513743/]
America cares about human rights so when a massacre is reported we brush it off as an isolated incident [http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Anything-That-Moves-American/dp/1250045061/]
America's debt are transparent and fair [http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081/]
American dream is alive and well [social mobility is one of the lowest of developed nations]
America does not conduct economic espionage. [yes, it does since at least 1990's]
None of these things are true yet are widely believed. They aren't believed by everyone but they are believed by enough people that it's massively harming China's reputation.
In general, the concept of communal property is pervasive among egalitarian societies. Most mobile foragers or hunter-gatherers are or were egalitarian, as are many horticultural societies. However, there's a lot of variation. Typically there are complex social leveling mechanisms in place that prevent any individual from collecting too much wealth (including material and social). For example, when a hunter gets a kill, depending on the tool and method used and present company, there may be different culturally proscribed methods for distribution. Egalitarianism, putatively characterized the majority of human evolution but is hardly representative of all human culture. Robert Kelly's new edition of The Foraging Spectrum provides a nice review. Also, Boehm's Hierarchy in the Forest is a good introduction to theories on egalitarianism.
Let's see. This'll be long, but I hope it helps out with the understanding.
"Bad things" is a bit of an understatement if we are talking about the experiences of black folks in this country throughout its history, as present day situations (i.e., discriminatory law enforcement and legal consequences, wealth gaps, gentrification, educational deficits, food deserts, etc.) are often the direct result of historic marginalization and oppression. Black folks are more likely to live in impoverished communities due to the recently-illegal-but-still-occurring practice of redlining that denied them the ability to purchase homes in certain areas. Funding for public services, like schools, are typically tied to the wealth of the community they serve, leading to underfunded schools in black communities that contribute to gaps in education and earning potential. High rates of poverty are always correlated with higher crime rates, and black communities tend to be the poorest. Since enslavement there has been a systematic effort to destroy and distort black cultural practices, with much of our current "culture" being derived from cobbled together pieces created during the darkest time in our history, and tinged with the poverty and crime in our communities. These negative messages are often perpetuated in mass media--as mass media is known to do--and regurgitated back to us as internalized racism; we accept that poverty, crime, and less-productive cultural efforts are what "real" blackness is (that last bit is my personal hypothesis, and what I'll probably be focusing on as I start work on my PhD).
I think revolting against the system is the plan for any manner of revolution, but the armed and violent kind is not the method being advocated here. Rather, we must do all we can to restructure the system so that it is just as beneficial to black and brown bodies as it is to white ones, and that is generally achieved through sociopolitical changes.
As for whiteness, I don't think there was an intent to portray "white folks as the devil", but more to think of how destructive the idea "whiteness" can be. To better understand this sentiment, one must understand how "whiteness" in this country came to be, a topic that I couldn't possibly go into in depth here, but I can give you the cliff notes. Essentially, European explorers and colonizers devised the idea of "race" as a method of categorization after nationality was no longer the biggest identifying factor. In other words, how can we fair-skinned Europeans differentiate ourselves from the darker skinned African slaves, and the darker skinned Native "savages". Notions of race and color were the simplest methods, but this became complicated when Mexico came into the picture (particularly the descendants of fair skinned Spanish colonizers, who were considered white), the approach to race and mixed heritage present in Louisiana, and the arrival of Asian immigrants. The idea of who was and was not white changed over time, but whiteness has always been used in this country as a way to differentiate those who were normal and could have things (land, votes, business, education, etc.) from those who were different and thus could not have. This divide was especially detrimental when it came to the idea of blacks, who were considered no better than property or livestock for a large chunk of our history. Today, the benefits of this system of classification are readily apparent, as whites outpace every other racial group in this country in nearly every positive metric, and white folks in this country continue to receive special favor due to the nature of the system underpinning our society. This favor is often unconscious and given without awareness, but it readily exists as privilege. A few really good books on this are The Racial Contract by Charles W. Mills, White by Definition by Virginia R. Dominguez, and Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi & Howard Winant.
So, the general idea of the speech simply echos many of the calls to action that have been made in recent years. It calls attention to the systems of oppression that have been put into place, the disastrous consequences of those systems for black and brown folks, the need for those in position of power and influence (regardless of race) to work towards dismantling unfair systems, the ongoing benefits white folks have in this systems (and the sense of complacency this gives rise to, since they of course stand to lose privilege and not gain much tangibly from equal rights), and the need for people rise up and fight for equality in oppressive systems.
>As far as I can tell, it is similar in meaning to "of colour" or simply "not-white / -Caucasian."
To be correct, it refers to the process of racialization, as in of assigning race to social groups ('racializing' people). Citing Omi and Winant:
>Race is ocular in an irreducible way. Human bodies are visually read, understood, and narrated by means of symbolic meanings and associations. Phenotypic differences are not necessarily seen or understood in the same consistent manner across time and place, but they are nevertheless operating in specific social settings. Not because of any biologically based or essential difference among human beings across such phonemic variables as “color” or “hair texture,” but because such sociohistorical practices as conquest and enslavement classified human bodies for purposes of domination— and because these same distinctions therefore became important for resistance to domination as well— racial phenotypes such as black and white have been constructed and encoded through the language of race. We define this process as racialization— the extension of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice, or group.
Another definition is provided by Miles and Brown:
>In sum, we use the concept of racialisation to denote a dialectical process by which meaning is attributed to particular biological features of human beings, as a result of which individuals may be assigned to a general category of persons that reproduces itself biologically. This process has a long history in precapitalist and capitalist societies. The particular content of the process of racialisation, and its consequences (including its articulation with political and economic relations), cannot be determined abstractly or derived formally from the primary features of the mode of production but are matters for historical investigation.
It can be argued that White or Caucasian people are racialized, too.
---
>Where did this terminological practice come from
From researchers and papers interested in race and affiliated topics and concepts. According to Miles and Brown:
>One of its earliest uses was by Fanon in a discussion of the difficulties facing decolonised intellectuals in Africa when constructing a cultural future (1967: 170–1). Banton (1977: 18) utilised the concept more formally to refer to the use of the idea of ‘race’ to structure people’s perceptions of the world’s population. His usage was limited, and by implication, its scope was confined to scientific theories of racial typology as used to categorise populations.
The term then evolved from there. I would suggest the definitions provided above and the title of the books from which I cite those definitions provide an answer to the questions regarding its use for scholars interested in the topic of race and racism and what it allows to describe and to study.
Hi, reddit! I'm pleased to hear about those tingles!
If you liked my video, perhaps try my new book: Memetics: Memes and the Science of Cultural Evolution.
...or my Memetics web site.
...or my Memetics blog.
>Am I missing much here?
Ignorance, racism, and hypocrisy. Their precious bible is sexist. Their ownership, control, and exploitation of Native Indian, Black, Asian, and even White women is sexist - during imperialism, slavery, before the civil rights movement, Native Indians in reservations, mass rapes in wars over seas, and even now at their foreign military bases. After they rape you, they blame you. Here, take a look.
 
Here's BEFORE:
"White women were encouraged to be chaste, while slave women were pictured as outlets for men's sexual desires...Despite the violent or coercive mistreatment of slave women, they were considered promiscuous. Their high birth rates and skimpy clothing--both consequences of their status as property--were used to justify the creation of negative imagery."
"This practice remained the status quo until 1967"
Gender and Legal History Paper Summary
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/library/collections/gender-legal-history/glh-summary.cfm?glhID=9737A959-C21A-47D3-75CF5754015C05F9
 
Here's NOW
>Racism and sexual harassment could lie behind the higher incidence of suicide attempts amongst teenagers adopted from foreign countries.
>Adopted teenagers from foreign countries are more than four times more likely to attempt suicide than other teenagers.
>The research team believe they've detected a pattern following interviews with young adopted women of Asian descent. 'People have preconceptions that [women of Asian descent] are promiscuous, prostitutes, have a strong sex drive and are considered to be exotic,' said Frank Lindblad, who believes that such sexual prejudices can be difficult for the women concerned to understand.
Racism behind suicide attempts - The Local
https://web.archive.org/web/20121006195710/http://www.thelocal.se/2942/20060126/
 
But, because white people tell the world they're great and egalitarian and simultaneously spread lies about Asian men (who are far less criminal across the board), the world ignores these inconvenient facts and goes along with their story - kinda like how "America is spreading freedom" even though they're the world's #1 terrorist group http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-C-I-Interventions-II--Updated/dp/1567512526/ and http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-State-Guide-Worlds-Superpower/dp/1567513743/, and #1 drug traffickers http://www.amazon.com/The-Politics-Heroin-Complicity-Global/dp/1556524838
 
Here are some more areas where they are the world leaders in.
● World leaders in murdering their own families
>In almost all of these cases, the killer is a white, non Hispanic man. n most cases, the man exhibits *possessive, obsessive and jealous behavior.
Murder-Suicide in Families | National Institute of Justice http://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/intimate-partner-violence/pages/murder-suicide.aspx
 
● Pedophile profile: Young, WHITE, wealthy | ZDNet
http://www.zdnet.com/article/pedophile-profile-young-white-wealthy/
https://www.amazon.com/Rogue-State-Guide-Worlds-Superpower/dp/1567513743
Bin Laden recommended! (that is actually 100% true)
I can't really delve into any detail, but basically archaeology didn't really become a thing until the mid-19th century. Antiquarianism was around for about 100 years before that, but it was really just about collecting interesting things as historical relics, and not about scientific inquiry or trying to understand the past through archaeological sites and artifacts. It's not that people did not care about archaeological sites, but rather that they just saw them as ruins or old buildings and did not really see them as important places for learning about who and what came before. They may not have even recognized them as ancient places at all.
The case in Italy must surely be different because the history of the Roman empire was well known by 1700 and people must have known that these ruins were built during the Roman Empire, but I don't know much about Italian archaeology or its history. In other parts of the world places that are now considered archaeological sites probably were not seen as anything special and were not recognized as the ruins and artifacts of societies that came thousands of years before. At least not in Western thought; I can't speak for how non-Western people viewed such ruins.
I've also heard that until the 19th century there was no true concept of the passage of time in Western thought. There was the Biblical age, the Classical age, and the modern age; that was it, the world would then end. People of course experienced lifetimes and knew that time passed, but there was no sense of any real change or that a stone celt was actually made by a pre-Biblical culture 8,000 years ago. That concept of long-term change and abandonment just didn't exist, and certainly the concept of deep time did not exist (until the 19th century people knew that the Earth was ~6000 years old). I find this concept very hard to wrap my head around, but that's because I've grown up in a world where deep time exists and things are always changing.
A great source for all this is Bruce Trigger's "A History of Archaeological Thought". The first two or three chapters go over the early development of antiquarianism and archaeology, and how Western thought changed to allow for deep time and the recognition of non-Western pasts (the rest of the book is about how thought within the discipline has changed over the 20th century). Trigger was a true master of archaeology and although this book is long and kind of dense, it is also very accessible to a non-specialist.
You might also find Barbara Bender's "Stonehenge: Making Space (Materializing Culture)" interesting. It is about Stonehenge, obviously, and about how the public perceives and uses Stonehenge. She talks about the history of Stonehenge as a monument, too, including some descriptions of it in the 12th or 13th century A.D. I can't remember exactly what she said about how it was viewed then, but I remember it being very interesting and pretty different from how it is perceived today.
was that the "it's a black problem" post? because i disagree with your assessment. the post was worded poorly, but there is certainly evidence the black community eschews education as pointed out in Losing The Race: Self-Sabotage In Black America by John McWhorter. Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams (particularly the former), who i reference in my other response, have written much about blacks and education, drawing upon their economic expertise comparing schools, educational outcomes and reported violence over many years. Larry Elder also touches upon the topic in Ten Things You Can't Say In America, and like the previous authors touches upon other issues currently (a key word) more common to the black community, particularly poor black communities.
i point this out as i intended to expound further, hopefully bringing the user to a wiser conclusion (supported by evidence).
the irony of arguing about someone being banned for offensive behavior in this thread is certainly not lost on me. in fact, i wholeheartedly agree with self-policing within communities. that said, i'm not so convinced accusations of racism are methodically applied as people like to believe and this case missed an opportunity for a more enlightened conversation--despite such comments.
your call; my two cents.
Are you going to be moving to London or elsewhere?
I'd also recommend this book to get a sense of how British people are (it says English, but the Scots and Welsh aren't that different, from a sociological perspective).
and even in 2010 there was a book out titled What Was the Hipster, as though it had already long died.
https://www.amazon.com/What-Was-Hipster-Sociological-Investigation/dp/0982597711
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>Pretty clear human rights violations
Why do you think they care?
General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned - Seven Countries In Five Years - YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw
http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-State-Guide-Worlds-Superpower/dp/1567513743/
I'm not sure of anything like what you're looking for, but Trigger's History of Archaeological Thought is a pretty decent all around guide to the development of archaeological theory, though it tends to be more US-focused. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0521600499
It’s absolutely correct that liberal intersectionality is dominate, to the point of being close to mainstream orthodoxy. I think this is because it ultimately doesn’t really challenge power in a serious way, if capital still sees the dollars flowing in then it doesn’t really matter. It’s extremely easy for the Toronto District School Board to phase out using “chief” is office titles ‘out of respect for First Nations people’ but quite difficult to build pluming infrastructure to bring clean water to First Nations communities. And because their is so much effort put into all those little aesthetic things, making everything gender neutral, that they feel like “we’ve already done so much for x group, and they are asking for more!”, and the public grows so tired of what they think are demands successfully being won as their economic position gets worse and worse.
The peak of this is Trudeau changing the lyrics of the national anthem. Find me an actual feminist activist who cares at all about this and sees this as a victory in any way. But it definitely made a lot of people extremely angry and more virulently anti-feminist.
There aren’t really any well known Marxist feminists. The biggest names are Silvia Federici and Lise Vogel, both of whom did the bulk of their work back in the 70s and 80s. It’s really only in the last couple years, in reaction to the ascendancy of a new wave of identify politics that there as been a rediscovery of the this older MarxFem work and new work done on the topic. It’s still relatively small but it’s definitely a growing trend, the explosive growth of the DSA in the United States has really spread this approach contra the identity politics left. Here is an example of new a Marxist approach to anti-racist politics that I’m excited to see when it comes out.
An example of how coming from a materialist/Marxist approach changes combating racism is that increasingly socialists reject ‘cultural appropriation’ or at least are dramatically cutting back on what the term is applied to. Many of us are realizing that the effort to combat cultural appropriation works toward the same goal that white nationalists want; keeping white people and culture “pure” by keeping them separate from non-white people. When it came to be about not just clothes but language (using that slang is appropriation etc) I came to realize that the logical end place of this is enforced separation, drawing sharper boundaries along race lines.
/u/nagCopaleen does a great job answering this but I thought I would add some additional insight. I have a personal theory that science-oriented anthropologists feel threatened when some of their colleagues begin to present work in more humanities or arts-based delivery systems. I feel that Taussig falls in this latter category. I personally love the guy but I can also see how anthropologists who are far more scientific in how they publish would be soured by how he presents his research.
Personally, I have run into some Old Guard anthropologists who feel that Visual Anthropology is "nonsense" and that without published ethnographic tomes, you are not a true anthropologist. This isn't to say that I'm against writing (because I'm not); I just don't think that it is the only way to present anthropological research. Much like Taussig's writing style, film and photography seem to hold non-academics attention a lot more than traditional ethnography. As was already said, I think that ethnography is sometimes pursued as a strictly scientific endeavor which is a sentiment I whole-heartedly disagree with.
In terms of gonzo anthropology (a term I love since I am also a big fan of HST), you should check out this article: Towards Gonzo Anthropology: Ethnography as Cultural Performance. I think you'll dig it.
I'm not sure if you've heard of David Graeber but you should definitely check out his work. He takes a very gonzo approach to his research. Forgive me if you are already familiar with him but you should check out Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology and Direct Action: An Ethnography. Those two publications really influenced me as an undergraduate.
It's not just about stereotyping though. It is so much bigger than that. Mark Grief writes about this a little bit:
>Bourdieu shows us that taste is not stable and peaceful, but a means of strategy and competition. Those superior in wealth use it to pretend they are superior in spirit...Those below us economically, the reasoning goes, don’t appreciate what we do; similarly, they couldn’t fill our jobs, handle our wealth or survive our difficulties.
I'm doing a piss poor job of explaining ideas of cultural capitol, but give this a read if you have time: http://www.brockport.edu/sociology/faculty/Cultural_Capital.pdf
No problem. Just to summarise -
But yeah, don't let this put you off making a fuss and complaining, they fucked up, you just won't realistically be able to threaten to sue them or have them arrested or anything. Reach out to those organisations I linked above, they may disagree, or they may be able to send e-mails supporting your complaint to the bus company or something.
On an unrelated note, no idea how long you've been in the country, but I always suggest this book to any newcomer to the country, because there's loads of weird unwritten rules and stuff, so learning about them might help you integrate more and understand what the deal with queuing, pubs, bants, etc. is. It's absolutely worth the investment.
Sorry, but that was a really poor article and conflates different kinds of inequality.
> inequality contributed to the financial crisis.
Yes, trying to fix inequality by encouraging people to buy homes who couldn't afford them.
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> (some) inequality is bad for economic growth.
Talks about gender equality in education. Focuses on correlation (using regression analysis), not causation. The paper does suggest some possible underlying causes (high mortality rate for women, so-called 'missing women'), but doesn't dive further into explanation.
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> inequality is bad politics.
This is a really weak argument. Politicians may have some incentives to visibly favor equality, but behind the scene they have incentives to favor inequality (lobbying, cronyism, campaign finance).
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> inequality slows down poverty reduction
If you define poverty as "the bottom 20%", then yes inequality matters. That's a tautology, which raises the question of what is a meaningful way to observe and measure poverty.
Btw, since redistributive policies has started in the US, the poverty rate (as define by an income threshold) hasn't improved anymore.
It is important to try and understand poverty, which is more subtle than some simple high-level aggregates suggest. For example, there are significant demographic factors which differ across income groups (young and retired, single parent families, people lacking full-time employment tend to have less income, duh).
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> the moral case is a good one
The moral case for less coerced redistribution is also a good one. Also, it depends how you ask the question (framing). Most people are really not that impacted by inequality in their daily lives (you don't live or interact with Bill Gates much).
Finally, the correlation between inequality and various bad social effects (crime, health, etc.) have been widely debunked (the data doesn't support the claims that were made in the first place). See The Spirit Level Delusion.
All that being said, I sympathize with the Occupy Wall Street movement's concerns. But most of the symptoms are caused by cronism, not a lack of redistribution.
The Hadza are a pretty good example of this. They are a hunter-gatherer group in Tanzania. There were multiple attempts by the government throughout the 1960s and 1970s to resettle them and instate a formal education system. These attempts failed, to say the least. They are mostly living the same way as before, hunting and gathering, though now they wear more clothing and use aluminum pots.
For more info about them (their society is beyond interesting), I'd highly recommend "The Hadza: Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania" by Frank Marlowe, who is the undisputed expert scholar on this group.
My advice, bar the obvious morally correct advice others have given:
Please let us know how this goes. Maybe over tea sometime.
EDIT: To remain convincing you should also be out of bed by now. :)
>why is their skin color a relevant data point?
because black people commit violent crimes at a disproportionately high rate when compared to Americans of other races. young black men are about 4% of the population, but commit about 40% of all violent crime. http://www.amazon.com/Things-Cant-America-Revised-Edition/dp/0312284659
> For example, black people and white people very obviously have different nose shapes.
This was refuted in literally my first week of Anthropology 100 in my undergrad. Which of these is the black nose?
This one?
This one?
This one?
This one?
This one?
>If it were only skin tone that influenced how we label different races, we'd find it impossible to tell the difference between, say, some Indians and some African Americans, but it actually isn't that hard at all.
Except it is, which is why a number of "African Americans" successfully posed as Indian during Jim Crow, for example Korla Pandit.
>but the one area where there is variation is in the characteristics we as a society have picked out upon to make the racial split in the first place.
You really should read the books I linked about the construction of race in America. To reiterate, those were Racial Formation in the United States, White By Law: The Legal Construction of Race, The History of White People, The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America.
One of the commenters who came from /r/sociology after you suggested I cross post in subs where the users have relevant academic training also added to that some Franz Boas, which I'd like to reiterate. A good introduction to biological anthropology will reiterate what I've said about white/black groupings that you're assuming and then reifying, as will all the resources here as will a good intro to sociology.
To reiterate (1) genetic populations exist, and may share some characteristics -- for instance, San people in South Africa are reliably different than Zulu people. (2) When you try to group those populations together into something like "black" it just doesn't work. The 5 or 7 or however many you want "races" do not have any basis in biological reality (3) groupings like "black" or "African American" are too diverse to make statements like "black people all share thus and such cranial shape/nasal capacity/whatever." Therefore, (4) it makes no sense to say that you can "hear" when someone is "black" because of something biological or physiological because "black" is not a biologically meaningful category, despite its incredibly high social salience. I further argued, above, that what OP does hear is likely an accent, from an ethnolect, which came about precisely because of the social construction of race. I have friends who have "black" parentage, but everyone treats them as "white" because they "look white" and "sound white." You cannot tell by listening that their parents are black, because it's not a biologically meaningful grouping that would actually affect physiology such that it had an affect on language.
A logical terminus of the inverse argument others have proposed above is that there are fundamental biological differences, directly related to race, which affect language production. We know this to be false.
Even in your aside on tone, you're still assuming "white" and "African American" are biologically meaningful groupings, when they're not.
Why Race Matters. Written by a philosopher who painstakingly rebuts all the arguments for environmentalism and explains lots of relevant studies. He also goes over the moral ramifications.
I really liked The Hadza: Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania by Frank Marlowe. It's about the modern day Hadza, who are, as you might have guessed by the title, hunter gatherers. The author tries to gain insight into what early humans might have been like by studying the Hadza, while still being very clear that the Hadza are not early humans. It mainly focuses on physical anthropology and spends a lot of time on details, like caloric intake per day, the specific species of berries they eat, and average skull size in the population. But you also get an in-depth look at the everyday lives of this modern hunter gatherer society. The author also analyzes their behavior through the lens of evolution, so you also get a good introduction to human evolution.
>Realize most crime is commited by whites
Try again.
Young black men are about 3% of the population. But they commit about 40% of all violent crimes. FBI and other stats here: http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Things-Cant-America-Revised/dp/0312284659
>Realize blacks are institutionally oppressed by society and people who judge them
How then do you explain that Carribean immigrants to America have lower rates of crime and higher rates of education than even American white people? Info here: http://www.amazon.com/Losing-Race-Self-Sabotage-Black-America/dp/0684836696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323096998&sr=1-1
This gets asked every so often, and these are the books I usually recommend for someone wanting to know what's up with archaeology. Start at the top, and keep going down if you're interested. There are many more, but I like these.
Here is the mobile version of your link
This is kind of half correct. Or half wrong depending on how you look at it. The Classic example is Napoleon Chagnon's description of the Yanomamo
Hunter Gatherer societies generally do have considerably more leisure and social/gender equality. It is important to understand while there is significantly more gender equality, that doesn't mean that there are not strict gender roles. The !Kung Live together peacefully, and equally without formal hierarchy. Violence is generally hit or miss.
When it comes to archaeological theory, Bruce Trigger is your man.
Here's another good one: http://www.amazon.ca/History-Archaeological-Thought-Bruce-Trigger/dp/0521600499
It has a large section on post-processualism in reference to other paradigms of archaeological thought. Good book to own for archaeologists in general.
thanks for the honest engagement. and i would say that my original understanding of PP was probably slightly skewed towards more of Proud Boys stuff (they both try hard to fall into radical ring wing "non-racist" groups with similar motives), while PP does seem more like fanatical right wing religious types. That said, I can recall when they showed up at evergreen college and their portland march immediately following the white nationalist murder of those women, and i think it would be hard to argue that "culture war" they are engaging in is in direct opposition to groups looking for racial equality. That is not to say that there are people of whom's ideas of idpol go bizarrely far (like when people claim a movie trailer doesn't show enough women/minorities, when in reality a 30 second clip of an action movie isn't what most minorities care about when they think of representation). I say this to show that i think there is fair criticism of people in movements to promote equality. But providing criticism of a movement and actively trying to oppose the movement as a whole and goals for equality are very different.
By your comments, it sounds like maybe your views of racial inequality is that it is insignificant in america today to validate a cultural movement towards seeking equality, but correct me if i'm wrong there. I would still argue that the evidence showing racial discrimination is still very important in understanding how and why there there are racial disparities in employment, school punishment, and other various economic mobility factors. as far as studies on incarceration rates "ignoring criminal history", that doesn't discount the POC are more likely to be pulled over, more likely to be arrested, etc. than whites. And you have to wonder that if a system which in the past has done so much to curtail the opportunities of POC, if the communities and populations really have a fair shot to make it out of poverty.
One reason i think that many people minimize the impact of racial discrimination is because white people also feel the weight of economic oppression, it's not just a problem that minorities feel. Working class people of all colors are continuing to see stagnant wages while the price for life and opportunity (cost of living, education, raising children) is becoming less attainable. Why should we care about about whether there is minority representation in movies when the real problems that effect me skyrocketing rents, lack of decent jobs, etc.? The wealth and power in America continues to consolidate into fewer and fewer hands. The best case scenario for the executives making $5000/hr is that the person making $25/hr blames their economic troubles on the person making $10/hr for wanting higher pay. Racism is a construct, and a useful tool for dividing the working class. There are some great books on the topic, and some having an interesting take on how current identity politics actually get in the way forming solidarity in the working class struggle.
The point that i am trying to make in all of this is that the "culture war" is a reaction to the very real economic oppression in our society, and one of the tools of the oppressors has long been racism as a means to divide the working class and create hierarchy which ultimately benefits the 1% above all else. The struggle that people of color face is a struggle that disadvantage whites face as well, and should be a rallying cry for solidarity. the fact of the matter is that POC are generally more oppressed, so in an effort to fight overall oppression, we must address the concerns of those who have it worst. If we want to live in a society which provides us equal opportunity, we have to address all of the systematic forms of oppression simultaneously to see lasting progress.
Sorry for the long winded response, it's just difficult for me to not tie in what i feel like is needed context haha.
>I suspect it is all a move by whiteys to mess up China
See the CIA's National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a fake ngo, that goes in to forment unrest, separatism, terrorism, etc. It is explained more in the book, http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-State-Guide-Worlds-Superpower/dp/1567513743/
I would suggest The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum. It is very comprehensive, informative, and readable.
I can recommend a book to you that might help, Watching the English by Kate Fox. She's a British anthropologist, and applies it to her own culture. It's really interesting to see why we behave the way we do and the "rules" of our behaviour.
I would also recommend William Blum's Killing Hope and Rogue State, as well as Chalmers Johnson's trilogy on empire, Blowback, Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis.
I am currently advocating to my college to change the Intro to ANthropology book to this one. It is a textbook and it might be on the expensive side, but it has a chapter that is great on Economic Anthropology.
I would suggest the following:
The world of goods: towards an anthropology of consumption
The full book of "Theory in economic anthropology" edited by Jean Ensminger. -- this one's an introduction book-- Here's a chapter
Another Economic Anthropology guidebook: Economies and Culture (Wilk and Cliggett 2007)
Richard Lee's and Marshall Sahlin's work, including "Stone Age Economics" (Sahlins, 1972)
If you're interested, the author of that piece just came out with a book on identity politics that looks worth reading.
I do think that generally people are waking up to the depth of the problem, though online spaces like this one are going to be a lagging indicator.
Just got done reading Rogue State, a MUST read for all Americans.
You can download a free sample if you have the Kindle app.
Alternately, there's a newer book with a similar title by the same author (A Flag Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of National Symbols), for which you can download a free sample on Google Play.
That sounds glorious, and I feel like I need to get this book for her. And yeah, I can imagine it'll throw you off-kilter a bit, but they do blend pretty well
Edit: Is it this one? http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-be-British-Collection/dp/0952287013/ref=sr_1_2/280-8945991-2670000?ie=UTF8&qid=1449418516&sr=8-2&keywords=how+to+be+british
>>The Asian countries are largely undemocratic and uncosmopolitan and thus, I believe, more prone to divisiveness along racial boundaries.
No the source you gave me yourself says that China is less diverse than the US (3% vs 20%). Also you can't possibly think that China, Cambodia, Pakistan, and Burma are more democratic than any Western nation.
>Do you write speeches for the white house? This sounds like just total nonsense. http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-State-Guide-Worlds-Superpower/dp/1567513743/ and http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081/
Well that's just about one of the best compliments I've ever received haha. Also it's a well supported theory in international relations that nations with open trade are less likely to come into conflict.
>Racially charged crimes are a big problem in all these places with any sizable minority group.
Okay it was a bit hyperbolic of me top use"post-racial" but what i meant was that European countries largely don't come into conflict at all let alone on racial lines largely due to the moderating effect of the European Union
You can check out The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers and the Shaping of the World by Hugh Brody. I read it for my intro to socio/cultural class. A lot on the Inuktitut people, it's super interesting and well written.
> Capitalism has been consistently proven to raise the standards of living wherever it has been tried.
Google the word neoliberalism sometime, and spend a day researching it.
> Meanwhile, every single attempt at socialism - the USSR, the PRC, the DPRK, Venezuela, Cuba - has resulted in disaster, and has lowered the standards of living wherever it has been tried.
In what sense are these socialist, apart from what they call themselves in name? An anarcho-capitalist can have some actual, justified criticisms against socialism in practice (I've seen many), but when people like you plow forward with such an elementary misunderstanding, believe me when I say you look bad, even to your own camp.
The Zapatistas? The Paris Commune? The Ukrainian Free Territories? Revolutionary Catalonia? The Israeli Kibbutzim? That is your actual target.
> There is a reason why every single country that was once considered communist has transitioned towards capitalism...
Because they were bombed to hell in the interest of the capitalist class?
> ... and it should be no surprise to anyone that the standard of living has raised in these areas.
Like the four asian tigers did through State intervention? (And like the US did, also). Nothing even close to a free market prescription, albeit a quasi-capitalist one nevertheless.
http://www.amazon.com/Direct-Action-Ethnography-David-Graeber/dp/1904859798/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323468158&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Anthropology-What-Does-Mean-Human/dp/0195392876
Rouge State: the most critical you could be of American foreign policies. It is a comprehensive list American lead Coupes, financing of revolutions and war crimes. It is rigorously sited throughout and states nothing but variable facts. Politically it would probably be agreeable to Libertarians, conservatives (just not Neo-con) and Progressives.
http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Being-Lied-Disinformation/dp/0966410076/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254450211&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Drug-War-Dan-Russell/dp/0965025349/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254450271&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Rogue-State-3rd-Worlds-Superpower/dp/1567513743/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254450315&sr=1-1
Maybe Little Benny should read Why Race Matters.
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Race-Matters-Michael-Levin/dp/0983891036
Have you heard of this book (http://www.amazon.com/Other-Side-Eden-Hunters-Farmers/dp/0865476101)? If so, do you think Brody's assessment of native life is accurate?
https://www.amazon.com/Readings-Diversity-Social-Justice-Maurianne/dp/0415892945
You want studies or a book?
One of the most profound books i have ever read is this on how states rise and fall. It's the most enlighting thing I have ever read, it changed how I view the world fundamentaly
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0452288193/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0452288193
Its a popular book without the mathematical models behind it
Here is the mathematical version
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691116695/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0691116695
But its quite expensive and only available as hardcover but there should be a different version coming out soon
For the study on cooperation this
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0996139516/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1517513099&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Peter+turchin&dpPl=1&dpID=41Ux9xQvfIL&ref=plSrch
On cultural evolution this books makes an incredible strong argument
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691178437/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0691178437
On how religion influences pro social behaviour this
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691169748/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517513482&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Ara+Norenzayan&dpPl=1&dpID=61TgLU80vIL&ref=plSrch
> Rogue State by William Blum
Available on Amazon for the curious
A theory of everything that explains nothing
Is The Spirit Level right about inequality and obesity?
The-spirit-level-revisited
The Spirit Level Delusion: Fact-Checking the Left's New Theory of Everything
Have you heard the PhDs that argue against your preconceived notions on race? There’s a lot of propaganda against the concept of race in science because of it’s misuse to justify racism in the past. It’s is very taboo and therefore discouraged. The main imperatives against it are, however, political and social. This makes scientists shy away from evidence that does indeed prove that distinct races exist. The differences are fairly superficial but they do exist. Sub-Saharan Africans have different body morphology than Europeans say- they have evolved and adapted in different climates. It’s why blacks have more melanin, longer limbs, less bodily hair and smaller skulls. There’s a reason why the majority of professional runners and basketball players are black.. These differences are genetic, self-evident and it is what constitutes different races. They are not very consequential and the social aspect, like you said, has been overblown and abused. However the evidence, no matter how taboo it might be, speaks for itself.
Source:
https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2014/05/06/race_is_real_what_does_that_mean_for_society_108642.html
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000067867
https://www.amazon.com/Troublesome-Inheritance-Genes-Human-History/dp/1594204462/ref=nodl_
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Race-Matters-Michael-Levin/dp/0983891036/ref=pd_aw_sbs_14_of_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0983891036&pd_rd_r=e75b9afd-7185-11e9-bb1d-335c9152e117&pd_rd_w=miEl9&pd_rd_wg=0RmFF&pf_rd_p=aae79475-6dc9-4a12-80e8-27b63108fa72&pf_rd_r=GRZ61MXYQHYC4J0K0WXM&psc=1&refRID=N8XTMQAP1WJRVCX7ZPPP
This looks like it might be promising:
https://www.amazon.com/Memetics-Memes-Science-Cultural-Evolution/dp/1461035260
https://www.amazon.com/Worth-Dying-Power-Politics-Flags-ebook/dp/B01G43GEA6
It's an engaging read, if perhaps a little simplistic, that very gives a whilstle stop tour of how flags around the world have come to represent ideas to unite under or against. It goes a little into the technical aspects of flags but primarily focuses on their cultural importance.
The book Readings for Diversity and Social Justice is pretty powerful and follows a nice format: Naming the issue, discussing historical context, discussing with stats how it currently stands, personal stories from oppressed peoples, and next steps to create change.
Each chapter follows a different type of oppression with racesim at the forefront. What Adams is so good at is pointing out that nearly every oppressed demographic (age, gender, religion, disability, class, etc) is also affected by race. Race is intersected with all of these and cannot be separated. I've really enjoyed it.
The best anthropology book ever written uses the term.
https://www.amazon.com/Yanomamo-Fierce-Studies-Cultural-Anthropology/dp/0030623286
Link to the book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spirit-Level-Delusion-Fact-Checking-Everything/dp/0956226515/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1272529304&sr=1-1-spell
How’s about a tenured professor with a Ph.D. From Columbia University?
No?
How about one from MIT?
Suit yourself
https://www.amazon.com/Yanomamo-Fierce-Studies-Cultural-Anthropology/dp/0030623286
edit:- Found this report
http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/beware%20false%20prophets%20-%20jul%2010.pdf
>Wilkinson and Pickett’s empirical claims are critically re-examined using (a) their own data on 23 countries, (b) more up-to-date statistics on a larger sample of 44 countries, and (c) data on the US states. Very few of their empirical claims survive intact.
The use of box-plots to adjust for outliers is a pretty important statistical technique missing from the original studies.
Which is pretty much what my guesstimation amounted to. I.e. them cherries dun been picked. I'd welcome to see a rebuttal to this report though. You have to skip through quite some pages to get to the data but there's a lot of it.
>Because it is neither an independent state or a democracy.
And that matters why? You're agreeing with me that these data points would radically alter this persons claims of correlation, yet you're dismissing them on spurious grounds, which seems like what someone would do if they wanted the correlation to be true.
We're talking about how inequality effects life outcomes in societies. It's more arbitrary cherry picking to say "nope, that one doesn't count for reason X". Who decided reason X was an important criteria? Why does reason X effect what effect income inequality has, or the outcomes its linked two? Those are the only two instances where adjustment is necessary.
Are we saying that if a place is not an independent state or a democracy then inequality becomes a good thing?
If Hong Kong has some magical property that makes inequality a positive thing, might we not want to apply that to other inequal nations?
Or more likely, it actually doesn't matter, and Hong Kong actually has significant levels of political autonomy and is a prime example of a nation with an inequal income distribution but strong metrics in life outcomes. Hong Kong would almost entirely cancel out effect of the US on those graphs and that would bring the whole thing closer to statistical insignificance.
Unless you're going to include all nations in the analysis then
>Talk about cherry picking. :) Aren't you the one that tries to argue that there isn't only one cause of inequality?
That's exactly my point.
You're saying American has problems with inequality because its government is not progressive enough. I brought up an example of a country with high income inequality but much more progressive laws. If you have a strong theoretical framework to prove that in you should be able to explain then why a nation with a strong welfare state, progressive taxation and progressive employment laws has high levels of inequality as well.
Otherwise to pick America and say "this has not very progressive laws and inequality so regressive laws cause inequality" is just anecdotal evidence.
>How did you draw that conclusion?
By not including states very similar to Portugal in standard of living, economy type and democratic system but who's only significant difference is a slightly lower GDP per capita.
You need some kind of mathematical criteria to exclude data points, you can't just "reckon" that certain countries aren't good examples, you need to show your working. If you can't likely you don't have enough maths in your work to say anything meaningful. In fact excluding data points is generally bad practise if the data itself is sound. its much better to include the data point and the adjustments you make to compensate for obfuscating factors as you get a better set of data all togther.
>If Wilkinson really is so guilty of cherry picking as you claim, I am sure that some of his critics have provided better statistics.
That's not necessarily the case at all. Sloppy data methods are everywhere, especially in soft sciences like economics.
This book claims to have fact checking of the claims of the Spirit Level, however since I've read neither the Spirit Level now the critique book I don't feel I have a place to recommend either.
This quote of a review of the book:
>It starts by exposing the empirical flaws in Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s The Spirit Level (SL), which claims that just about every social problem is caused by income inequality. Using where possible the same data sources as the authors, Snowdon shows that the results have been influenced by the choice of countries and indicators. Including just a handful of additional countries is enough to make many of the SL graphs, which show data points scattering around a straight line, dissolve into shapeless point clouds
Seems to tally with the limited search I've done of it so far. The point isn't that adding a few countries proves there's no correlation, but that the dataset is clearly not extensive enough if viable example countries can be found which will spoil the correlation.
To produce my own accurate analysis of the impact of income inequality would take hundreds of hours of research and would take hundreds of pages to write. I'm not going to do it. Even if I was you wouldn't bother to read it, and its not necessary for me to do it to recognize cherry picking when I see it. He needs a credible reason to exclude eastern european states that would ruin his correlation, but still include states like Portugal and Greece which are similarly borderline 2nd world countries.
If someone comes to me and say "hey I've measured a bunch of different countries and it turns out inequality is strongly linked with bad life outcomes", and I can within a few minutes of looking on wikipedia see several countries that would dramatically alter that correlation, and there's no compelling reason, I don't have to do 100s of hours of research to do a better analysis to say why it is cherry picking.
No I know you are an idiot. Afghanistan during Russian War, Iraq, So many Latin american countries, Israel, Syria (assad regime), Egypt, Saudi, etc.
Don't even pretend that those are not forms of colonialism, not to mention all the indirect forms of control through World Bank and IMF loans.
American interventionism is an indirect form of colonialism. When you prop-up pro-American dictators.
http://www.amazon.ca/Rogue-State-Guide-Worlds-Superpower/dp/1567513743
http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-War-Civilisation-Conquest/dp/1400075173
You have to see the consequences.
If the division of labour is universally across all world societies sex-determined (e.g., men predominantly hunt, men predominantly fish, while females predominantly wave), then you have either very deep cultural roots for this that is shared by all human societies, but then it doesn't explain why the division of labour is such even when societies were significantly transformed and also why something like this wasn't changed by some disruptor. Another explanation might be that it is something formed by pressure in certain environments/conditions and the traditional society is inhabited predominantly such environment/conditions. But again, this doesn't explain the range of different conditions and you would have to explain this universal thing. Lastly, you can say that there is some sexual determinant, as suggested in paper and in other literature, this can be pregnancy and associated risk aversion, hormone levels and thus different behaviour and so on. Lastly, you can compare it with other organisms where you can clearly see different sex strategies and sexually determined type of behaviour, which often stems from the simple fact that female is the macrogametic sex and male microgametic sex and from this, you have different reproduction and parenting strategies.
Also, unless you have some new information that disprove old, the age of research is inconsequential. And this field didn't dramatically changed. No new information was added to ethnographic atlas so if you did the analysis now, you would get the same result.
For more "up to date" information, you can look at https://www.amazon.com/Lifeways-Hunter-Gatherers-Foraging-Spectrum/dp/1107607612
You mean this one.
>Thank you for the shady pdf file guy who unironically has a picture of Himmler as their twitter profile picture, regularly refers to women as "whores" regardless of context, rants while frothing at the mouth about gender studies, and regularly posts in anime subreddits. I am sure that once I read this I will totally come over to your educated world of quarantined subreddits and mongolian paper mache boards.
Wait who has Himmler and speaks of whores? Are you okay? Perhaps you've had too much internet.
The linked PDF is merely a book written on a topic that you appear woefully ignorant of. The author is Michael Levin a Jewish American professor of philosophy at City University of New York. A published author with 3 books and numerous essays.
I've offered you a book, friend. I'll provide an Amazon link as well if downloading PDFs from the internet contributes to your numerous anxieties.
As an aside, you should see someone about the rambling. It's concerning and potentially indicative of an unstable thought process.