具体描述
A unique alternative to more traditional, encyclopedic introductory texts, Anthropology: What Does It Mean to Be Human? takes a question-oriented approach that illuminates major concepts for students. Structuring each chapter around an important question, the authors explore what it means to be human, incorporating answers from all four subfields of anthropology-cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology-and offering a more balanced perspective than other texts. They address central issues of the discipline, highlighting the controversies and commitments that are shaping contemporary anthropology.
作者简介
目录信息
What Is Anthropology?
The Concept of Culture
The Cross-Disciplinary Discipline
The Uses of Anthropology
Module 1: Anthropology, Science, and Storytelling
Some Key Scientific Concepts
Chapter 2: Why Is Evolution Important to Anthropologists?
Evolutionary Theory
Material Evidence for Evolution
Pre-Darwinian Views of the Natural World
The Theory of Natural Selection
Unlocking the Secrets of Heredity
Contemporary Genetics
Genotype, Phenotype, and the Norm Of Reaction
What Does Evolution Mean?
Chapter 3: What Can Evolutionary Theory Tell Us about Human Variation?
Microevolution
Macroevolution
The Future of Human Evolution
Module 2: Dating Methods in Paleoanthropology and Archaeology
Relative Dating Methods
Numerical Dating Methods
Modeling Prehistoric Climates
Chapter 4: What Can the Study of Primates Tell Us about Human Beings?
The Primates
Approaches to Primate Taxonomy
The Living Primates
Flexibility as the Hallmark of Primate Adaptations
Past Evolutionary Trends in Primates
Primate Evolution: The First 60 Million Years
Chapter 5: What Can the Fossil Record Tell Us about Human Origins?
Hominid Evolution
The First Hominids (6"3 mya)
The Later Australopithecines (3"1.5 mya)
Explaining the Human Transition
Early Homo Species (2.4"1.5 mya)
Homo Erectus (1.8"1.7 mya to 0.5"0.4 mya)
The Evolutionary Fate of Homo erectus
The Evolution of Homo sapiens
An Archaic Human Population: Neandertals (130,000 to 35,000 years ago)
Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age Culture
Anatomically Modern Humans (200,000 years ago to present)
The Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age (40,000? to 12,000 years ago)
The Fate of the Neandertals
Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age Cultures
Spread of Modern Homo sapiens In Late Pleistocene Times
Two Million Years of Human Evolution
Chapter 6: How Do We Know about the Human Past?
Archaeology
Interpreting the Past
Whose Past Is It?
Plundering the Past
Contemporary Trends in Archaeology
Chapter 7: Why Did Humans Settle Down, Build Cities, and Establish States?
Human Imagination and the Material World
Plant Cultivation as a Form of Niche Construction
Animal Domestication
The Motor Of Domestication
Domestication, Cultivation, and Sedentism In Southwest Asia
The Consequences of Domestication and Sedentism
What Is Social Complexity?
Archaeological Evidence for Social Complexity
How Can Anthropologists Explain the Rise of Complex Societies?
Chapter 8: How Does the Concept of Culture Help Us Understand Living Human Societies?
Explaining Culture and the Human Condition
Cultural Differences
Culture, History, and Human Agency
Writing against Culture
The Promise of the Anthropological Perspective
Module 3: On Ethnographic Methods
A Meeting of Cultural Traditions
Single-Sited Fieldwork
Multisited Fieldwork
Collecting and Interpreting Data
Chapter 9: How Do Cultural Anthropologists Learn about Contemporary Ways of Life?
Ethnographic Fieldwork: A Short History
The Dialectic of Fieldwork: Interpretation and Translation
The Effects of Fieldwork
The Production of Anthropological Knowledge
Anthropological Knowledge as Open-Ended
Chapter 10: Why Is Understanding Human Language Important?
Language and Culture
Design Features of Human Language
Language and Context
Pidgin Languages: Negotiated Meaning
Linguistic Inequality
Language Ideology
Language, Culture, and Thought
Language, Thought, and Symbolic Practice
Languages, Symbolic Practices, Worldviews
Symbolic Practices, Worldviews, Selves
Chapter 11: How Do Symbolic Practices Shape Human Lives?
Play
Art
Myth
Ritual
Worldview and Symbolic Practice
Religion
Worldviews in Operation: Case Studies
Maintaining and Changing a Worldview
Worldviews as Instruments of Power
Chapter 12: How Do Anthropologists Study Economic and Political Relations in Contemporary Human Societies?
Anthropologists Study Social Organization
How Do Anthropologists Study Politics?
Hidden Transcripts and the Power of Reflection
How Do Politics and Economics Shape Each Other?
How Do Anthropologists Study Economics?
Distribution and Exchange
Production
Consumption
Chapter 13: Where Do Our Relatives Come From, and Why Do They Matter?
Kinship
Patterns of Descent in Kinship
Lineages
Kinship Terminologies
Adoption
Marriage
Marriage as a Social Process
Marriage and Economic Exchange
Family
Transformations in Families over Time
Sexual Practices
Sexuality and Power
Chapter 14: What Can Anthropology Tell Us about Social Inequality?
Gender
Class
Caste
Race
Ethnicity
Nation and Nationalism
Chapter 15: What Can Anthropology Tell Us about Globalization?
Cultural Processes in a Global World
Globalization and the Nation-State
Human Rights and Globalization
Cultural Imperialism, Cultural Hybridization, and Cosmopolitanism
Module 4: What Can Anthropology Contribute to Everyday Life?
Anthropology Beyond the University
Anthropology and the Challenges of Global Citizenship
Awareness and Uncertainty
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读后感
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用户评价
这本书的价值远超乎一本学术专著的范畴，它更像是一部关于“我们如何成为我们自己”的深度哲学对话录。作者对于“时间感”在不同文化中的差异化构建的描述，简直是石破天惊。我一直以为时间是普世的、线性的，但书中通过对某个古老文明对“循环时间”的信仰的细致描摹，让我对“当下”的理解产生了巨大的位移。这本书阅读起来，需要读者投入极大的心神，因为它不是那种可以一边刷手机一边读的轻松读物，它要求你全身心投入到作者构建的那个世界观里去。我特别喜欢作者在总结时所采用的那种带着历史厚重感的语调，他似乎能看到几百年前的祖先在做同样的选择，也能预见几百年后世界可能的走向。整本书的论证过程层层递进，逻辑链条异常牢固，但同时又充满了人性的温暖和对人类共同命运的关怀。它成功地将最遥远、最陌生的文化经验，转化成了触手可及、关乎自我身份的深刻反思，是一部真正能够改变读者思维模式的杰作。
评分老实说，当我拿起这本书时，我内心是抱持着一丝怀疑的，因为市面上关于人类起源和文化差异的读物汗牛充栋，大多流于表面或者陷入了晦涩的术语泥潭。然而，这本书的开篇就以一种近乎文学散文的笔调，迅速抓住了我的注意力。它不像是在讲解理论，更像是在讲述一个个发生在人类历史长河中的精彩故事。其中关于权力结构如何在看似松散的社群中悄然固化那一节，简直是神来之笔。作者没有用那些冷冰冰的图表和数据来堆砌论点，而是通过对几个关键人物命运的侧写，将抽象的社会学概念具象化了。我必须称赞作者的叙事节奏感，时而缓慢沉静，如同在等待一粒种子发芽，时而又骤然加速，展现出文化变迁的迅猛与无情。读到某个关于跨文化交流失败案例的分析时，我甚至忍不住拍了一下大腿，原来我们习以为常的“常识”，在地球的另一端竟是如此荒谬的误解。这本书最让我感到痛快的是，它敢于直面那些敏感且充满争议的话题，但处理方式却异常老练，既保持了学术的严谨，又避免了空洞的说教，让人在阅读的过程中，智商和情商都得到了同步的提升。
评分这本书的叙事功力实在令人拍案叫绝，作者像一位技艺高超的织工，将那些看似毫无关联的田野观察和理论思辨，通过精妙的笔触编织成一张既美观又结实的知识之网。我尤其欣赏它在处理复杂社会现象时所展现出的那种克制而深邃的洞察力。它不是那种急于给出标准答案的教科书式论述，反倒更像是一场引人入胜的智力探险。书中对某个特定族群的仪式行为的描述，细致到连空气中弥漫的气味似乎都能被文字捕捉到，那种沉浸感，让人感觉自己正赤脚站在潮湿的泥土上，亲历其境。我花了整整一个下午，沉浸在对其中关于“物”与“人”之间关系构建的章节中，作者挑战了我们习以为常的二元对立思维，提出了一系列极具启发性的观点。这本书的魅力就在于，它不直接告诉你“应该怎么想”，而是巧妙地搭建了一个让你自己去‘看见’、去‘感受’、去‘重塑’世界观的舞台。读完后，我发现自己看待日常接触的物件，甚至人际互动的方式，都染上了一层新的、更具历史纵深感的滤镜。它成功地做到了让一个领域的专业概念，以一种对非专业读者友好的、充满画面感的语言呈现出来，这无疑是一项巨大的文学成就。
评分读完此书，我最大的感受是，它彻底颠覆了我对“客观性”这个概念的理解。作者在阐述其研究方法论时，坦诚地展示了自身作为观察者在田野中的挣扎、误判与最终的自我校正，这种近乎自传式的坦率，反而增强了作品的权威性。它没有伪装成一个从天而降的、全知全能的上帝视角，而是将研究本身视为一场充满变数的、动态的人类互动。书中对于“文化相对主义”的探讨，已经超越了学界争论的范畴，它触及到了我们每个人在面对“他者”时，内心深处最原始的评判机制。我印象最深的是对仪式中“无效行为”的分析，那些看似毫无目的的动作，在作者的解读下，忽然爆发出强大的社会粘合力。这本书的语言风格非常独特，它既有学术论文的严谨性，又流淌着一种近乎诗意的哲学思辨，句子结构复杂多变，长短句交错使用，使得阅读体验如同在欣赏一部结构精巧的交响乐，每一个乐章都有其不可替代的功能和情感张力。
评分这本书的结构设计简直是反直觉的精妙。我原以为它会按照传统的地理或者时间线索来展开，但事实是，作者采取了一种主题螺旋上升的编排方式，每次当我们似乎理解了某个概念时，作者就会引入一个全新的维度来解构它，迫使读者不断地进行自我修正和深度思考。尤其是关于符号意义的生成与消亡那几章，简直让人大呼过瘾。作者的论证过程如同走迷宫，你以为已经找到了出口，结果却发现自己进入了一个更深层的、需要全新工具才能破解的节点。我发现自己经常需要停下来，合上书本，在房间里踱步几分钟，消化那些如同密集信息流一样的洞察。这本书的文字密度非常高，几乎每一句话都蕴含着厚重的思考，丝毫没有多余的赘述，这对于追求高效阅读的现代人来说，是一种极大的尊重。更难得的是，它似乎成功地在宏大叙事（比如人类的共同性）和微观个体经验（比如某个村庄的家庭矛盾）之间找到了一个完美的平衡点，让理论不至于飘浮，让故事不至于琐碎。这本书更像是一把精密的钥匙，开启了理解人类复杂性的无数扇门。
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