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Questions of Anthropology
Anthropology today seems to shy away from the big, comparative questions that ordinary people in many societies find compelling. Questions of Anthropology brings these issues back to the centre of anthropological concerns.Individual essays explore birth, death and sexuality, puzzles about the relationship between science and religion, questions about the nature of ritual, work, political leadership and genocide, and our personal fears and desires, from the quest to control the future and to find one's 'true' identity to the fear of being alone. Each essay starts with a question posed by individual ethnographic experience and then goes on to frame this question in a broader, comparative context. Written in an engaging and accessible style, Questions of Anthropology presents an exciting introduction to the purpose and value of Anthropology today.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2007
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July 28, 2023yes i have read totally 100% of this book all today there's no doubt about it
January 27, 2025
Good, quite variable though. Some were 5/5 and others were 1/5. I read them all, which was possibly a mistake as some were a slog. Though I think the ones that I didn't like I probably just didn't understand, I've not studied Anthropology and mostly just read for fun.
I will say that many of them didn't really do as a good a job as I was hoping at answering the questions they set out to. Many of them felt like they were too hyper specific to whatever group they were studying and didn't zoom at all, or compare.
The afterword did a really great job at pulling a lot of it together, I'd have liked more of it.
My favourites were:
- What does it mean to be alone
- How do we know who we are
- What is going to happen next
- What makes people work
- What kind of sex makes people happy
- Afterword(doesn't really count but it was great)
The others were all good, these ones just stuck out.
I will say that many of them didn't really do as a good a job as I was hoping at answering the questions they set out to. Many of them felt like they were too hyper specific to whatever group they were studying and didn't zoom at all, or compare.
The afterword did a really great job at pulling a lot of it together, I'd have liked more of it.
My favourites were:
- What does it mean to be alone
- How do we know who we are
- What is going to happen next
- What makes people work
- What kind of sex makes people happy
- Afterword(doesn't really count but it was great)
The others were all good, these ones just stuck out.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews