Best General Anthropology Books
Here you will get Best General Anthropology Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Author: by Yuval Noah Harari
Published at: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (May 15, 2018)
ISBN: 978-0062316110
Official U.S.Edition with full color illustrations throughout. #1 New York Times Bestseller The Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg, now available as a beautifully packaged paperbackFrom a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolutiona #1 international bestsellerthat explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be human.
One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only onehomo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition.
From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas.
2. The Cruelty Is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump's America
Author: by Adam Serwer
One World (June 29, 2021)
English
384 pages
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From an award-winning journalist at The Atlantic, these searing essays make a damning case that cruelty is not merely an unfortunate byproduct of the Trump administration but its main objective and the central theme of the American project.
No writer better demonstrates how American dreams are so often sabotaged by American history. Adam Serwer is essential. Ta-Nehisi Coates Trump summoned the most treacherous forces in American history and conducted them with the ease of a grand maestro. Like many of us, Adam Serwer didn’t know that Donald Trump would win the 2016 election.
But over the four years that followed, the Atlantic staff writer became one of our most astute analysts of the Trump presidency and the volatile powers it harnessed. The shock that greeted Trump’s victory, and the subsequent cruelty of his presidency, represented a failure to confront elements of the American past long thought vanquished.
In this searing collection, Serwer chronicles the Trump administration not as an aberration but as an outgrowth of the inequalities the United States was founded on. Serwer is less interested in the presidential spectacle than in the ideological and structural currents behind Trump’s riseincluding a media that was often blindsided by the ugly realities of what the administration represented and how it came to be.
3. Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life
Author: by Gillian Tett
English
304 pages
1982140968
In an age when the business world is dominated by technology and data analysis, award-winning financial journalist and anthropology PhD Gillian Tett presents a radically different strategy for success: businesses can revolutionize their understanding of behavior by studying consumers, markets, and organizations through an anthropological lens.
Amid severe digital disruption, economic upheaval, and political flux, how can we make sense of the world? Leaders today typically look for answers in economic models, Big Data, or artificial intelligence platforms. Gillian Tett points to anthropologythe study of human culture.
Anthropologists train to get inside the minds of other people, helping them not only to understand other cultures but also to appraise their own environment with fresh perspective as an insider-outsider, gaining lateral vision. Today, anthropologists are more likely to study Amazon warehouses than remote Amazon tribes; they have done research into institutions and companies such as General Motors, Nestl, Intel, and more, shedding light on practical questions such as how internet users really define themselves; why corporate projects fail; why bank traders miscalculate losses; how companies sell products like pet food and pensions; why pandemic policies succeed (or not).
4. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Author: by Jared Diamond Ph.D.
English
528 pages
0393354326
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize New York Times Bestseller Over Two Million Copies SoldOne of the most significant projects embarked upon by any intellectual of our generation (Gregg Easterbrook, New York Times), Guns, Germs, and Steel presents a groundbreaking, unified narrative of human history.
Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse? In this artful, informative, and delightful (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, a classic of our time, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond dismantles racist theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for its broadest patterns.
The story begins 13,000 years ago, when Stone Age hunter-gatherers constituted the entire human population. Around that time, the developmental paths of human societies on different continents began to diverge greatly. Early domestication of wild plants and animals in the Fertile Crescent, China, Mesoamerica, the Andes, and other areas gave peoples of those regions a head start at a new way of life.
5. The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name
Author: by Brian C. Muraresku
English
480 pages
1250207142
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As seen on The Joe Rogan Experience! A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations.
The most influential religious historian of the 20th century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the “best-kept secret” in history. Did the Ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? And did the earliest Christians inherit the same, secret tradition?
A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? There is zero archaeological evidence for the original Eucharist the sacred wine said to guarantee life after death for those who drink the blood of Jesus.
The Holy Grail and its miraculous contents have never been found. In the absence of any hard data, whatever happened at the Last Supper remains an article of faith for today’s 2. 5 billion Christians. In an unprecedented search for real answers, The Immortality Key examines the archaic roots of the ritual that is performed every Sunday for nearly one third of the planet.
6. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition
Author: by Jared Diamond
B004H0M8EA
Penguin Books
January 4, 2011
In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization. Diamond is also the author of Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in CrisisEnvironmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted.
As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe, and weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. Collapse moves from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland.
Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society’s apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana.
7. Fingerprints of the Gods
Author: by Graham Hancock
Crown
English
592 pages
Could the story of mankind be far older than we have previously believed? Using tools as varied as archaeo-astronomy, geology, and computer analysis of ancient myths, Graham Hancock presents a compelling case to suggest that it is. A fancy piece of historical sleuthing …
Intriguing and entertaining and sturdy enough to give a long pause for thought. Kirkus Reviews In Fingerprints of the Gods, Hancock embarks on a worldwide quest to put together all the pieces of the vast and fascinating jigsaw of mankind’s hidden past.
In ancient monuments as far apart as Egypt’s Great Sphinx, the strange Andean ruins of Tihuanaco, and Mexico’s awe-inspiring Temples of the Sun and Moon, he reveals not only the clear fingerprints of an as-yet-unidentified civilization of remote antiquity, but also startling evidence of its vast sophistication, technological advancement, and evolved scientific knowledge.
A record-breaking number one bestseller in Britain, Fingerprints of the Gods contains the makings of an intellectual revolution, a dramatic and irreversible change in the way that we understand our pastand so our future. And Fingerprints of God tells us something more.
8. Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible
Author: by E. Randolph Richards
IVP Books
English
240 pages
Bookwi.Se’s Favorite Books of the Year, Non-FictionWhat was clear to the original readers of Scripture is not always clear to us. Because of the cultural distance between the biblical world and our contemporary setting, we often bring modern Western biases to the text.
For example:When Western readers hear Paul exhorting women to “dress modestly,” we automatically think in terms of sexual modesty. But most women in that culture would never wear racy clothing. The context suggests that Paul is likely more concerned about economic modesty-that Christian women not flaunt their wealth through expensive clothes, braided hair and gold jewelry.
Some readers might assume that Moses married “below himself” because his wife was a dark-skinned Cushite. Actually, Hebrews were the slave race, not the Cushites, who were highly respected. Aaron and Miriam probably thought Moses was being presumptuous by marrying “above himself.”Western individualism leads us to assume that Mary and Joseph traveled alone to Bethlehem.
9. Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution
Author: by Terence McKenna
Bantam
English
311 pages
An exploration of humans’ symbiotic relationships with plants and chemicals presents information on prehistoric partnership societies, the roles of spices and spirits in the rise of dominator societies; and the politics of tobacco, tea, coffee, opium, and alcohol. Why, as a species, are humans so fascinated by altered states of consciousness?
Can altered states reveal something to us about our origins and our place in nature? In Food of the Gods, ethnobotanist Terence McKenna’s research on man’s ancient relationship with chemicals opens a doorway to the divine, and perhaps a solution for saving our troubled world.
McKenna provides a revisionist look at the historical role of drugs in the East and the West, from ancient spice, sugar, and rum trades to marijuana, cocaine, synthetics, and even televisionillustrating the human desire for the food of the gods and the powerful potential to replace abuse of illegal drugs with a shamanic understanding, insistence on community, reverence for nature, and increased self-awareness.
10. Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past
Author: by David Reich
B073NP8WT3
Vintage (March 27, 2018)
March 27, 2018
A groundbreaking book about how ancient DNA has profoundly changed our understanding of human history. Geneticists like David Reich have made astounding advances in the field of genomics, which is proving to be as important as archeology, linguistics, and written records as a means to understand our ancestry.
In Who We Are and How We Got Here, Reich allows readers to discover how the human genome provides not only all the information a human embryo needs to develop but also the hidden story of our species. Reich delves into how the genomic revolution is transforming our understanding of modern humans and how DNA studies reveal deep inequalities among different populations, between the sexes, and among individuals.
Provocatively, Reich’s book suggests that there might very well be biological differences among human populations but that these differences are unlikely to conform to common stereotypes. Drawing upon revolutionary findings and unparalleled scientific studies, Who We Are and How We Got Here is a captivating glimpse into humankindwhere we came from and what that says about our lives today.
11. Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships
Author: by Christopher Ryan
0061707813
Harper Perennial
English
Sex at Dawn challenges conventional wisdom about sex in a big way. By examining the prehistoric origins of human sexual behavior the authors are able to expose the fallacies and weaknesses of standard theories proposed by most experts. This is a provocative, entertaining, and pioneering book.
I learned a lot from it and recommend it highly.Andrew Weil, M.D. Sex at Dawn irrefutably shows that what is obviousthat human beings, both male and female, are lustfulis true, and has always been so. The more dubious its evidentiary basis and lack of connection with current reality, the more ardently the scientific inevitability of monogamy is maintainedeven as it falls away around us.Stanton Peele, Ph.D.
A controversial, idea-driven book that challenges everything you (think you) know about sex, monogamy, marriage, and family. In the words of Steve Taylor (The Fall, Waking From Sleep), Sex at Dawn is a wonderfully provocative and well-written book which completely re-evaluates human sexual behavior and gets to the root of many of our social and psychological ills.
12. Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class
Author: by Charles Murray
Twelve
English
528 pages
All people are equal but, as Human Diversity explores, all groups of people are not the same – a fascinating investigation of the genetics and neuroscience of human differences. The thesis of Human Diversity is that advances in genetics and neuroscience are overthrowing an intellectual orthodoxy that has ruled the social sciences for decades.
The core of the orthodoxy consists of three dogmas: Gender is a social construct. Race is a social construct. Class is a function of privilege. The problem is that all three dogmas are half-truths. They have stifled progress in understanding the rich texture that biology adds to our understanding of the social, political, and economic worlds we live in.
It is not a story to be feared. “There are no monsters in the closet,” Murray writes, “no dread doors we must fear opening.” But it is a story that needs telling. Human Diversity does so without sensationalism, drawing on the most authoritative scientific findings, celebrating both our many differences and our common humanity.
13. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, 20th Anniversary Edition
Author: by Michel-Rolph Trouillot
Beacon Press
English
216 pages
Now part of the HBO docuseries “Exterminate All the Brutes,” written and directed by Raoul PeckThe 20th anniversary edition of a pioneering classic that explores the contexts in which history is producednow with a new foreword by renowned scholar Hazel Carby Placing the West’s failure to acknowledge the Haitian Revolutionthe most successful slave revolt in historyalongside denials of the Holocaust and the debate over the Alamo, Michel-Rolph Trouillot offers a stunning meditation on how power operates in the making and recording of history.
This modern classic resides at the intersection of history, anthropology, Caribbean, African-American, and post-colonial studies, and has become a staple in college classrooms around the country. In a new foreword, Hazel Carby explains the book’s enduring importance to these fields of study and introduces a new generation of readers to Trouillot’s brilliant analysis of power and history’s silences.
14. Debt: The First 5000 Years
Author: by David Graeber
1612194192
Melville House
English
The groundbreaking international best-seller that turns everything you think about money, debt, and society on its headfrom the brilliant, deeply original political thinker David Graeber (Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me) Before there was money, there was debt.
For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goodsthat is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditorswhich lives on in full force to this day.
So says anthropologist David Graeber in a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Renaissance Italy to Imperial China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections.
He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like guilt, sin, and redemption) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong.
15. Black Skin, White Masks
Author: by Frantz Fanon
0802143008
Grove Press
English
Few modern voices have had as profound an impact on the black identity and critical race theory as Frantz Fanon, and Black Skin, White Masks represents some of his most important work. Fanon’s masterwork is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers.
A major influence on civil rights, anti-colonial, and black consciousness movements around the world, Black Skin, White Masks is the unsurpassed study of the black psyche in a white world. Hailed for its scientific analysis and poetic grace when it was first published in 1952, the book remains a vital force today from one of the most important theorists of revolutionary struggle, colonialism, and racial difference in history.
16. Food Americana: The Remarkable People and Incredible Stories behind America’s Favorite Dishes (Humor, Entertainment, and Pop Culture)
Author: by David
Mango (May 4, 2021)
English
214 pages
Whet Your Appetites for A Fascinating History of American Food “Terrific food journalism. Page uncovers the untold backstories of American food. A great read.” George Stephanopoulos, Good Morning America, This Week and ABC News’ Chief Anchor2021 International Book Awards finalist in History: United States#1 New Release in History Humor, Food & Cooking, and Media Tie-In Cooking David Page changed the world of food television by creating, developing, and executive-producing the groundbreaking show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
Now from the two-time Emmy winner David Page comes the book Food Americana, an entertaining mix of food culture, pop culture, nostalgia, and everything new on the American plate. The remarkable history of American food. What is American cuisine? What national menu do we share?
What dishes have we chosen, how did they become American, and how are they likely to evolve from here? David Page answers all these questions and more. Food Americana is engaging, insightful, and often humorous. The inside story of how Americans have formed a national cuisine from a world of flavors.
