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Big Ideas Simply Explained
The Anthropology Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained
336 pages, Hardcover
Published September 23, 2025
7 people are currently reading
312 people want to read
About the author
D.K. Publishing
9,067 books2,088 followersDorling Kindersley (DK) is a British multinational publishing company specializing in illustrated reference books for adults and children in 62 languages. It is part of Penguin Random House, a consumer publishing company jointly owned by Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA and Pearson PLC. Bertelsmann owns 53% of the company and Pearson owns 47%.
Established in 1974, DK publishes a range of titles in genres including travel (including Eyewitness Travel Guides), arts and crafts, business, history, cooking, gaming, gardening, health and fitness, natural history, parenting, science and reference. They also publish books for children, toddlers and babies, covering such topics as history, the human body, animals and activities, as well as licensed properties such as LEGO, Disney and DeLiSo, licensor of the toy Sophie la Girafe. DK has offices in New York, London, Munich, New Delhi, Toronto and Melbourne.
Source: Wikipedia.
Established in 1974, DK publishes a range of titles in genres including travel (including Eyewitness Travel Guides), arts and crafts, business, history, cooking, gaming, gardening, health and fitness, natural history, parenting, science and reference. They also publish books for children, toddlers and babies, covering such topics as history, the human body, animals and activities, as well as licensed properties such as LEGO, Disney and DeLiSo, licensor of the toy Sophie la Girafe. DK has offices in New York, London, Munich, New Delhi, Toronto and Melbourne.
Source: Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 3, 2025
This book lives up to my personal hype I had to both be one of the first to read this beloved Big Ideas Simply Explained (BISE) series right as it released, and how anthropology is such a personal subject to explore, as it helps explain my place in the world!
What hooked me to read through these pages is the theories, analysis, and evidence to explain our existence and culture. With hindsight, it's easy to scoff at the early anthropological theories, as I have read and have access to a lot more complete picture of history and global cultures, but when anthropology first started back in the late 19th century to early 20th century, the picture of who the human race is was very small. Many of their theories are still relevant today either for context for the modern picture or to understand where some racist ideas originate from.
And that's one thing the book likes to explore, is anthropology's apologist attitude today towards its origins as a Western colonist exploitative field of science. That, though it advanced our understandings of the "Other" humans outside this bubble and in the case of Margaret Mead was very reassuring that some of our struggles are not biologically determined traits, anthropology was very much predatory towards the Indigenous groups they analyzed and lead to some unfortunate power imbalances.
What's further intriguing about this field is how it overlaps with sociology. These two disciplines couldn't be more similar! The most notable example being how often you'll read lines in this book like, "based on Marxist theories..." whereby "sociocultural anthropologists" (which is the most common type of anthropologist cited in these pages) quote or build off of Marxist or Friedrich Engel's ideas, mostly from their Communist Manifesto, which even though neither of them have their own section in this book, makes it feel like their manifesto is a must read to fully appreciate anthropology!
I loved loved loved reading this book! The cover looks good; this feels like Avengers: Infinity Wars with how many dang "Contributors" are unusually listed at the beginning, that this feels like the true culmination of what this BISE series has been building up towards for the past decade since it started; and I am really curious how and when they'll follow up this book with their next release???
Anyways, much love,
Happy nonfiction reading! <3
What hooked me to read through these pages is the theories, analysis, and evidence to explain our existence and culture. With hindsight, it's easy to scoff at the early anthropological theories, as I have read and have access to a lot more complete picture of history and global cultures, but when anthropology first started back in the late 19th century to early 20th century, the picture of who the human race is was very small. Many of their theories are still relevant today either for context for the modern picture or to understand where some racist ideas originate from.
And that's one thing the book likes to explore, is anthropology's apologist attitude today towards its origins as a Western colonist exploitative field of science. That, though it advanced our understandings of the "Other" humans outside this bubble and in the case of Margaret Mead was very reassuring that some of our struggles are not biologically determined traits, anthropology was very much predatory towards the Indigenous groups they analyzed and lead to some unfortunate power imbalances.
What's further intriguing about this field is how it overlaps with sociology. These two disciplines couldn't be more similar! The most notable example being how often you'll read lines in this book like, "based on Marxist theories..." whereby "sociocultural anthropologists" (which is the most common type of anthropologist cited in these pages) quote or build off of Marxist or Friedrich Engel's ideas, mostly from their Communist Manifesto, which even though neither of them have their own section in this book, makes it feel like their manifesto is a must read to fully appreciate anthropology!
I loved loved loved reading this book! The cover looks good; this feels like Avengers: Infinity Wars with how many dang "Contributors" are unusually listed at the beginning, that this feels like the true culmination of what this BISE series has been building up towards for the past decade since it started; and I am really curious how and when they'll follow up this book with their next release???
Anyways, much love,
Happy nonfiction reading! <3
Displaying 1 of 1 review