Showing titles in Anthropology

Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that 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 goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.

'This book is brilliant. Utterly, utterly brilliant' Jeremy Clarkson 'F*cking brilliant' Sarah Knight READ FOR YOU BY CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED COMIC AND HUMAN NISH KUMAR, THIS IS AN EXHILARATING JOURNEY THROUGH THE MOST CREATIVE AND CATASTROPHIC F*CK-UPS OF HUMAN HISTORY. In the seventy thousand...

La storia di come le reti di informazione hanno fatto e disfatto il nostro mondo, dall’autore del bestseller mondiale Sapiens. Negli ultimi centomila anni, noi Sapiens abbiamo accumulato un enorme potere. Eppure, nonostante tutte le nostre scoperte, invenzioni e conquiste, oggi ci troviamo in una crisi esistenziale. Il mondo è sull’orlo del collasso ecologico. La disinformazione dilaga. E ci stiamo buttando a capofitto nell’era dell’intelligenza artificiale, una nuova rete di informazioni che minaccia di annientarci. Perché siamo così autodistruttivi?

An instant #1 New York Times bestseller, Primates of Park Avenue is an “amusing, perceptive and…deliciously evil” (The New York Times Book Review) memoir of the most secretive and elite tribe—Manhattan’s Upper East Side mothers. When Wednesday Martin first arrives on New York City’s...

Why didn't the ancient Greeks or Romans wear pants? How did they shave? How likely were they to drink fine wine, use birth control, or survive surgery? In a series of short and humorous essays, Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants explores some of the questions about the Greeks and Romans that ancient historian Garrett Ryan has answered in the classroom and online. Unlike most books on the classical world, the focus is not on famous figures or events, but on the fascinating details of daily life.

Katherine Pangonis explores five forgotten cities of the Mediterranean: Syracuse, Antioch, Ravenna, Tyre and Carthage. Each of these of these ancient cities has a claim to have been the centre of the world in its own time. Their fascinating entwined history takes in Alexander the Great, the Byzantine general Maniakes, and the Roman, Byzantine, Arab and Norman conquests. All were once major power centres that have declined into relative obscurity - but their glory still lingers for those who seek it out.

Brought to you by Penguin. The hidden fabric of a Victorian woman's life - from family and friends to industry and Empire - told through her unique textile scrapbook. In 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day. Collecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments she carefully...

‘It’s the kind of book that makes you wonder, ‘why wasn’t this written before?’ It could change lives’ EVENING STANDARD ‘Turns everything you’ve been taught about sex on its head’ RUBY RARE What lies are we told when it comes to sex? What impossible expectations pollute our...

Bloomsbury presents On Our Best Behaviour written and read by Elise Loehnen. *THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* 'A stunning, big and bold encyclopedia of how to live' LISA TADDEO 'Astute, radical and utterly compelling' KATHERINE MAY 'You will finish this book and immediately hand your copy...

Um mergulho preciso e mordaz no mundo dos endinheirados brasileiros. Há um traço comum a boa parte dos endinheirados brasileiros: eles não se consideram ricos. Não existe um critério absoluto para a riqueza no Brasil. Sempre haverá alguém com mais dinheiro, mais pompa, mais patrimônio, mais próximo do topo da pirâmide. Logo, os ricos são sempre os outros.

"Nous commencerons par discuter les points de vue pris sur la femme par la biologie, la psychanalyse, le matérialisme historique. Nous essaierons de montrer ensuite positivement comment la "réalité féminine" s'est constituée, pourquoi la femme a été définie comme l'Autre et quelles en ont été les conséquences du point de vue des hommes."

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Flirtology, written and read by Jean Smith. How can I tell when someone is flirting with me? How can I be a more confident flirt? How do I avoid rejection? Where are all the good men and women hiding? Flirtology is the dating guide for the 21st century. In an age of swiping left and right and hiding behind online profiles, this audiobook shows you how to replace connectivity with connection.

Brought to you by Penguin. Religion is both unique - as far as we can judge - and universal to humans. Our species diverged from the great apes about six to eight million years ago and since then, along with language, our propensity towards spiritual thinking and ritual emerged. How, when and...

Brought to you by Penguin. No sex. No kids. No future? When Tom Feiling moved to Tokyo as a student in the early nineties, Japan was a beacon of the future: a rising superpower, a technology giant, and a global symbol of prosperity, civility and success. When he returned twenty-four years later...

Spanning an extraordinary range of subjects and locations, these ten gripping essays show why Jon Krakauer is considered a standard-bearer of modern journalism. His pieces take us from a horrifying avalanche on Mount Everest to a volcano poised to obliterate a big chunk of Seattle; from a...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘A radical book that speaks out accessibly’ BONO ‘Indispensable … This is the essential handbook’ CHRISTINE LAGARDE ‘A remarkably good read’ GILLIAN TETT, Financial Times ‘A landmark achievement’ WILL HUTTON, Observer This is a pivotal moment in our...

In Britain alone, more than 20 per cent of the adult population take a psychiatric drug in any one year. This is an increase of over 500 per cent since 1980 and the numbers continue to grow. Yet, despite this prescription epidemic, levels of mental illness of all types have actually increased in number and severity. Using a wealth of studies, interviews with experts, and detailed analysis, Dr James Davies argues that this is because we have fundamentally mischaracterised the problem.

Brought to you by Penguin. Drawn from more than two decades of pathbreaking writing, the iconic and bestselling David Graeber's most important essays and interviews. ‘The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently,’...

Few events have had a more profound impact on the social and cultural upheavals of the Sixties than the psychedelic revolution spawned by the spread of LSD. This audiobook for the first time tells the full and astounding story - part of it hidden till now in secret Government files - of the role the mind-altering drug played in our recent turbulent history and the continuing influence it has on our time. And what a story it is, beginning with LSD’s discovery in 1943 as the most potent drug known to science.

Is your workplace riven by tribal conflict? Are your meetings governed by dozens of unspoken rituals? Is there something faintly religious about the way your colleagues worship the CEO? If so, then you might need a lesson in business anthropology. For a century, anthropologists have had an unusual method: immersing themselves deep inside 'alien' tribes and uncovering, from the inside, how they tick. Today, a new generation of anthropologists are using this approach to explain modern businesses - revealing the hidden rituals that define what we buy, who we sell to and how we work.