Cultural Anthropology: Tribes, States, and the Global System, with PowerWeb

This text introduces basic concepts of cultural anthropology by comparing cultures of increasing scale and focusing on specific universal issues. The author challenges students to consider the "big" questions about the nature of cultural systems: How do cultures of different scale meet the challenge of maximizing human security in a dynamic, often threatening world? What is it like to be human under different cultural conditions? What human inequalities are natural and which are cultural? What are the human costs of socioeconomic growth?. .

"Understanding how tribes, states, and global systems work and how they differ might help citizens design a more secure and equitable world," argues Bodley; it is this advocacy position that informs the text..