Anthropology: A Global Perspective

This popular introduction to anthropology integrates a historical, biological, archeological, and global approach with the ethnographic data available from around the world. Drawing on both classic and recent research in the field, it reflects the current state-of-the-art understanding of social and cultural changes based on the relationships among different types of societies. It demonstrates the diversity of different societies and cultural patterns, but also shows how humans everywhere are fundamentally similar. Chapter topics include evolution; primates; hominid evolution; human variation; Paleolithic cultures; the origins of domestication and settled life; the enculturation process; anthropological explanations; analyzing society and culture; tribes and chiefdoms; agricultural and industrial states; consequences of globalization; and contemporary global trends. For individuals interested in the study of anthropology and the advent of new solutions for the quality of life in the future of humankind. d.