Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.

Originally published between 1920-70, the "History of Civilization" was published at a formative time within the social sciences, and during a period of decisive historical discovery. The aim of the general editor, C.K. Ogden, was to summarize the most up to date findings and theories of historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and sociologists. This reprinted material is available as a set or in the following groupings: "Prehistory and Historical Ethnography" set of 12 (0-415-15611-4, u800); "Greek Civilization" set of 7 (0-415-15612-2, u450); "Roman Civilization" set of 6 (0-415-15613-0, u400); "Eastern Civilizations" set of 10 (0-415-15614-9, u650); "Judaeo-Christian Civilization" set of 4 (0-415-15615-7, u250); "European Civilization" set of 11 (0-415-15616-5, u700).

This stimulating anthology, prepared by the great folklorist, B.A. Botkin, is comprised of the traditional songs, stories, customs, and beliefs which have been handed down, by word of mouth, for so long that they seem to have a life of their own. For Botkin, they are at the core of peoplehood.

When one thinks of American folklore one thinks not only of the folklore of American life, the traditions that have sprung up on American soil, but also of the literature of folklore, the migratory traditions that have found a home in the New World. Here are the pioneer heroes, legendary and real: the boasters, liars, bad men, good people, and strong people. There are anecdotes, tall tales, cross talk, and jests, full of vigorous good humor. There is a selection of the classic ballads of sailors, miners, cowboys, lumberjacks, and hoboes. Relations between men and women, slave songs of the black people, work songs connected with union struggles, are all herein covered. In The American People, the people speak and are allowed to tell their own story in their own way.

The volume is graced by a personal memoir by Louis Filler. The reader learns the background that made Botkin an integral voice in the reconstruction of American folklore. Here, one can read the actual tales of Davy Crockett, Buffalo Bill, Casey Jones, Johnny Appleseed, The Arkansas Traveler, Paul Bunyan, and countless other figures from the past- real and mythic.

Here is help for anyone who has to produce a public event -- from a church social or school fundraiser to a national conference. This comprehensive and practical handbook is the first to reveal all the tricks and techniques of the professional event organizer. Packed with step-by-step instructions, checklists, schedules, and lists of organizations, addresses, and publications, this edition includes updated resources that will prove indispensable to event planners.

Presenting sixty theoretical ideas, David Zeitlyn asks 'How to write about anthropological theory without making a specific theoretical argument.' "David Zeitlyn has written a wryly engaging, short book on, essentially, why we should not become theoretical partisans-that, indeed, being a serious theorist means accepting precisely that principle."-Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University To answer, he offers a series of mini essays about an eclectic collection of theoretical concepts that he has found helpful over the years. The book celebrates the muddled inconsistencies in the ways that humans live their messy lives. There are, however, still patterns discernible: the actors can understand what is going on, they see an event unfolding in ways that are familiar, as belonging to a certain type and therefore, Zeitlyn suggests, so can researchers. From the introduction: This book promotes an eclectic, multi-faceted anthropology in which multiple approaches are applied in pursuit of the limited insights which each can afford.... I do not endorse any one of these idea as supplying an exclusive path to enlightenment: I absolutely do not advocate any single position. As a devout nonconformist, I hope that the following sections provide material, ammunition and succour to those undertaking nuanced anthropological analysis (and their kin in related disciplines).... Mixing up or combining different ideas and approaches can produce results that, in their breadth and richness, are productive for anthropology and other social sciences, reflecting the endless complexities of real life. ...This is my response to the death of grand theory. I see our task as learning how to deal with that bereavement and how to resist the siren lures of those promising synoptic overviews. This book is relevant to anthropology, communication studies, cultural studies and sociology.

Don't just see the sights get to know the people. India's huge population of 1.2 billion is as varied and colorful as the spice markets of Old Delhi. Each region, caste, and community has its own culture, reflecting unique histories shaped by conquest, creativity, and religion. Steeped in ancient traditions, exceptionally fatalistic, and intensely passionate about their culture, the Indians are also ingenious, creative, and world leaders in cutting-edge science and technology. Show interest in their country and it will be reciprocated with genuine warmth and friendship. Culture Smart! India will make you aware of the essential values and behavioral norms, show you how to navigate often profound cultural differences and build relationships, and offer invaluable insights into this great, endlessly fascinating land. Have a more meaningful and successful time abroad through a better understanding of the local culture. Chapters on values, attitudes, customs, and daily life will help you make the most of your visit, while tips on etiquette and communication will help you navigate unfamiliar situations and avoid faux pas.

Japan is one of the most urbanised and industrialised countries in the world. Yet the Japanese continue to practise a variety of religious rituals and ceremonies despite the high-tech, highly regimented nature of Japanese society. Ceremony and Ritual in Japan focuses on the traditional and religious aspects of Japanese society from an anthropological perspective, presenting new material and making cross-cultural comparisons.
The chapters in this collection cover topics as diverse as funerals and mourning, sweeping, women's roles in ritual, the division of ceremonial foods into bitter and sweet, the history of a shrine, the playing of games, the exchange of towels and the relationship between ceremony and the workplace. The book provides an overview of the meaning of tradition, and looks at the way in which new ceremonies have sprung up in changing circumstances, while old ones have been preserved, or have developed new meanings.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203429540

Touching on everything from its rich musical heritage to its varied cultural traditions, this is a thorough and accessible introduction to the contemporary lives of the different peoples who call Mali their home. Rated among the world's ten poorest nations, Mali has a glorious past and a less-certain present. Culture and Customs of Mali touches on the first as background for understanding the second, exploring multiple facets of contemporary social life and cultural practices in this landlocked, West African nation. The book offers an overview of diverse aspects of everyday social, cultural, and religious life in Mali, paying particular attention to regional and ethnic variations. It shows how current social conventions and cultural values are the product of a centuries-long history, while at the same time dispels the common perception that African societies are rooted in unchanging tradition. Readers will come away with a better understanding of the multiple ways in which Malians, starting from their own customs and cultural foundations, integrate themselves into an international economic order and a globalized world of shared media images and cultural practices. A chronology of important political events and developments from the medieval empires of Mali until the contemporary period Photographs of Malian life A glossary of key terms, such as polygyny, marriage payments, and oral tradition A bibliography of important work written in English on Mali, its history, peoples, culture, religion, and social customs

"Culinary Art and Anthropology" is an anthropological study of food. It focuses on taste and flavor using an original interpretation of Alfred Gell's theory of the "art nexus." Grounded in ethnography, it explores the notion of cooking as an embodied skill and artistic practice. The integral role and concept of "flavor" in everyday life is examined among cottage industry barbacoa makers in Milpa Alta, an outer district of Mexico City. Women's work and local festive occasions are examined against a background of material on professional chefs who reproduce "traditional" Mexican cooking in restaurant settings. Including recipes to allow readers to practice the art of Mexican cooking, "Culinary Art and Anthropology" offers a sensual, theoretically sophisticated model for understanding food anthropologically. It will appeal to social scientists, food lovers, and those interested in the growing fields of food studies and the anthropology of the senses.

Presenting sixty theoretical ideas, David Zeitlyn asks 'How to write about anthropological theory without making a specific theoretical argument.' "David Zeitlyn has written a wryly engaging, short book on, essentially, why we should not become theoretical partisans-that, indeed, being a serious theorist means accepting precisely that principle."-Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University To answer, he offers a series of mini essays about an eclectic collection of theoretical concepts that he has found helpful over the years. The book celebrates the muddled inconsistencies in the ways that humans live their messy lives. There are, however, still patterns discernible: the actors can understand what is going on, they see an event unfolding in ways that are familiar, as belonging to a certain type and therefore, Zeitlyn suggests, so can researchers. From the introduction: This book promotes an eclectic, multi-faceted anthropology in which multiple approaches are applied in pursuit of the limited insights which each can afford.... I do not endorse any one of these idea as supplying an exclusive path to enlightenment: I absolutely do not advocate any single position. As a devout nonconformist, I hope that the following sections provide material, ammunition and succour to those undertaking nuanced anthropological analysis (and their kin in related disciplines).... Mixing up or combining different ideas and approaches can produce results that, in their breadth and richness, are productive for anthropology and other social sciences, reflecting the endless complexities of real life. ...This is my response to the death of grand theory. I see our task as learning how to deal with that bereavement and how to resist the siren lures of those promising synoptic overviews. This book is relevant to anthropology, communication studies, cultural studies and sociology.

Food and Everyday Life provides a qualitative, interpretive, and interdisciplinary examination of food and food practices and their meanings in the modern world. Edited by Thomas M. Conroy, the book offers a number of complementary approaches and topics around the parameters of the "ordinary, everyday" perspective on food. These studies highlight aspects of food production, distribution, and consumption, as well as the discourse on food. Chapters discuss examples ranging from the cultural meanings of food as represented on television, to the practices of food budgeting, to the cultural politics of such practices as sustainable brewing and developing new forms of urban agriculture. A number of the studies focus on the relationships between food, eating practices, and the body. Each chapter examines a particular (and in many instances, highly unique) food practice, and each includes some key details of that practice. Taken together, the chapters show us how the everyday practices of food are both familiar and, yet at the same time, ripe for further discovery.

"Culture and Customs of the Philippines" provides the best general overview to the Asian archipelago and to a people with close ties to the United States and a long history of emigration and contributions to this country. The volume emphasizes how the strong indigenous Philippine culture meshes with constant influences from the West. Rodell, a specialist in Philippine history and society, superbly evokes the breadth of the Philippines for students and the general public. The wide variety of Philippine traditions is seen in each topic covered: the land, people, and history; religion and thought; literature and art; architecture; cuisine and fashion; gender, marriage, and family; festivals, media, film, and leisure activities; music and dance; and social customs and lifestyle.

"Culture and Customs of the Philippines" is crucial to multicultural reference collections today needing authoritative information on contemporary Asia that will capture readers' attention. Interest in the Philippines, a former U.S. colony, is especially high. Some highlights of the volume include discussion of the Tagalog, the principal ethnic group; the amalgamation of Christian, folk, and Muslim beliefs; the "bahay kubo," the rural house style; and the all-important Philippine family. A chronology, glossary, and numerous photos enhance the text.

In Dancing in the Streets Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture. She discovers that the same elements come up in every human culture throughout history: a love of masking, carnival, music-making and dance. Although sixteenth-century Europeans began to view mass festivities as foreign and 'savage', Ehrenreich shows that they were indigenous to the West, from the ancient Greek's worship of Dionysus to the medieval practices of Christianity as a 'danced religion'. Exhilarating in its scholarly range, humane, witty and impassioned, Dancing in the Streets will generate debate and soul-searching.

Ideal for high school and undergraduate students, this addition to the Culture and Customs of Africa series examines the contemporary cultures and traditions of modern Gambia, from religious customs to literature to cuisine and much more. This title in the Culture and Customs of Africa series examines the traditions and customs of contemporary Gambia, a geographically tiny nation in the vast landscape of Africa that is home to a large number of various ethnic groups, each with its own distinctive way of life. It is a country that has been largely unknown in Western culture, with the exception of Alex Haley's book Roots and subsequent TV series, which highlights Gambia's historic significance in the slave trade. This book illuminates Gambian religion and worldview; literature and media; arts and architecture/housing; gender roles, marriage, and family; social customs, traditional dress, cuisine, and lifestyle; and music and dance. The author has successfully encapsulated both long-ago history and contemporary Gambia to provide students with a complete look at life in Gambia today. Information on past traditions and historic events is discussed in the context of how they pertain to life today and their influence on the constant evolution of Gambian life and culture. A map of Gambia Photographs depicting places in Gambia and people engaging in traditional activities and customs A bibliography of sources and additional reading

'This book is unsettling, in the most enjoyable way. ''Home'' has long been a scholarly obsession, but where others try to pin down its ''meaning'', this collection revels in its multiplicity. By viewing home-making as practiced and mobile, these essays emphasise the 'interactional achievement' of people, spaces and things. It examines its scale - from man-caves to nations - its spatiality - on public transport as much as in residences - and its temporality - as constant re-creation. This approach flags the contradictory and ambivalent nature of home-making as individual and collective projects of identity. In a world marked by a ''crisis of home'', this collection examines the relation between agency and power as we struggle for coherence and continuity.' Greg Noble, University of Western Sydney, Australia Asking us to think differently about the home, this book challenges the notion of a closed-off and self-sufficient place and reimagines home to be where we find our connections to others and the world. By exploring home in relation to the figure of the stranger and public space, as well as with a focus on practices of dwelling and materialities, the authors demonstrate that thinking differently about home advances our understanding of belonging as a social process in which we are all implicated. Interrelated chapters challenge traditional, convenient and stereotypical notions of 'home'. Specifically, the book provides a state-of-the-art cross-disciplinary conceptual framework; contributes to national and international discussions on the changing economic and social meanings of home; and provides analysis of areas and locations that are rarely thought of as involved in 'home-making', e.g. man caves; mobile homes; the home in public; senses of home; the migrant citizen/stranger. This book is an essential resource for those involved in housing policy, issues around migration policies and to researchers working in other arenas such as cultural heritage. It is of particular interest to academics of sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, and those whose research investigates questions of domestic space and the politics of home. Contributors include: A. Alund, J. Browitt, A. Deslandes, N. Ebert, M. Giuffre, O. Hamilton, E. Honeywill, J. Humphry, L. Kings, J. Lloyd, Y. Musharbash, S. Redshaw, C.-U. Schierup, A. Stebbing, S. Supski, I. Vanni Accarigi, E. Vasta

Ricardo Palma's Tradiciones is the first full-length account of Ricardo Palma informed by theories of cultural criticism. Elisa Sampson Vera Tudela sheds new light on important aspects of Palma's work. She offers a fresh interpretation of the relations between history and literature - perhaps the most discussed aspect of Palma's work - engaging with new critical thinking on historicism and examining the significance of the marginal and the anecdotal in Palma's work. By using the tools of postcolonial cultural criticism, Vera Tudela considers Palma's encounter with modernity, arguing that his recuperation of colonial history plays a crucial part in imagining the modern future. Most innovatively, Vera Tudela examines the multiple and contradictory notions of femininity in nineteenth-century Latin America and in Palma's writing, showing how a historical consideration of the sexual politics of cultural production transforms our understanding of many of the assumptions about this period. Finally, by applying the insights of cultural geography in analysing the racial, sexual and political identity of domestic, urban and national space in Palma's writing, Vera Tudela demonstrates that Palma's literary maps and topographies are uniquely revelatory of questions of power and agency. In its exploration of sexual politics and nationhood, Ricardo Palma's Tradiciones presents Palma as a proto-modernist who paved the way for many of the experiments of twentieth-century Latin American narrative fiction.

A group of Chagga-speaking men descend the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro to butcher animals and pour milk, beer, and blood on the ground, requesting rain for their continued existence. Returning Life explores how this event engages activities where life force is transferred and transformed to afford and affect beings of different kinds. Historical sources demonstrate how the phenomenon of life force encompasses coffee cash-cropping, Catholic Christianity, and colonial and post-colonial rule, and features in cognate languages from throughout the area. As this vivid ethnography explores how life projects through beings of different kinds, it brings to life concepts and practices that extend through time and space, transcending established analytics.

This book explores the intimate relationship between literature and class in England (and later Britain) from the Peasants' Revolt at the end of the fourteenth century to the impact of the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth. The book argues throughout that class cannot be seen as a modern phenomenon that occurred after the Industrial revolution but that class divisions and relations have always structured societies and that it makes sense to assume a historical continuity. The book explores a number of themes relating to class: class consciousness; class conflict; commercialisation; servitude; rebellion; gender relations; and colonisation. After outlining the history of class relations, five chapters explore the ways in which social class consciously and unconsciously influenced a series of writers: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Behn, Rochester, Defoe, Duck, Richardson, Burney, Blake and Wordsworth. -- .

This enlightening narrative takes a look at the wedding night-its origins, history, customs, cultural expressions, and fictional representations through the ages. Though just outside of public view, the wedding night is loaded with expectation and consequence. The Wedding Night: A Popular History is an entertaining, accessible, touching, and humorous volume that looks at the previously unexplored topic of wedding history "between the sheets." Covering a kaleidoscopic array of cultural expressions, this unique study zooms in on what's quintessential and shares insights into the history of intimacy through the ages. The book traces the formalization of the wedding night in the ancient Near East and classical world, provides many examples of historically significant unions in European and American history, and describes the lively variety of traditions leading up to the present. Spicing their narrative with many piquant quotes from contemporary sources, the authors explore the rich cultural context for the wedding night-processions, royal rituals, apparel, food-related traditions, and pranks-throughout Europe and America in the 19th and 20th centuries. Separate chapters examine sex guides, jokes, and the bed as a special conjugal space. 15 paintings, illustrations, sculptures, and cartoons that depict aspects of the wedding night throughout history Numerous texts and quotations from primary sources that underscore historical practices and mores An appendix of movies that feature important wedding nights

..".this specialist-oriented volume is a rich contribution to the literature on this region. Notably it seems directed as much toward the ongoing historiographical conversation in Bali itself as it is toward external scholars." JASO Online

..".constitutes an outstanding contribution in the study of history outside the traditional perspective of recourse to narrative sources (whether these be oral or written)." African Affairs

"This amazing book...represents a model for scholars seeking to blend the tools of history writing and political/ cultural anthropology; its value is applicable not only in Cameroon, but elsewhere." International Journal for African Historical Studies

"With the suspense of a detective novel, this slim, richly detailed volume] proceeds in a series of comparisons...This charming book is an exacting exercise in comparison and historical reconstruction." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

..".an important contribution - not only to the local history of the Grasslands of Cameroon. It offers a better understanding of processes of transformation of rituals and asks important methodological questions, which should be of interest to anybody dealing with the history of early photography in Africa and visual anthropology. As to be expected from the "Cameroon Studies" series the volume is rounded up by a comprehensive bibliography and a very useful index." Anthropos

"As in his previous works, Fardon does not make it easy for his readers to labour through his dense writing. However, it is absolutely worthwhile. This unconventional book contains a wealth of insights with far-reaching methodological consequences. It demonstrates how to recover history without even for a moment losing sight of the constructivity of the knowledge produced." Journal of African History

Lela in Bali tells the story of an annual festival of eighteenth-century kingdoms in Northern Cameroon that was swept up in the migrations of marauding slave-raiders during the nineteenth century and carried south towards the coast. Lela was transformed first into a mounted durbar, like those of the Muslim states, before evolving in tandem with the German colonial project into a festival of arms. Reinterpreted by missionaries and post-colonial Cameroonians, Lela has become one of the most important of Cameroonian festivals and a crucial marker of identity within the state. Richard Fardon's recuperation of two hundred years of history is an essential contribution not only to Cameroonian studies but also to the broader understanding of the evolution of African cultures.

Richard Fardon, Professor of West African Anthropology in the University of London, is the author of four monographs on West Africa, as well as numerous works of anthropological theory. Since 1988 he has taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies, where he chaired the University of London's Centre of African Studies for eight years. In addition to its obvious archival sources, this book draws upon ethnographic research he began in Nigeria (from 1976) and in Cameroon (from 1984). Richard Fardon has been editor of the journal AFRICA since 2001.