In Watching Lacandon Maya Lives, the author follows three generations of one Lacandon Maya family. Readers track the subjects' lives as they shift through events such as marriage, parenthood, and religious conversion, all set against a backdrop of increased tourism, road construction, and the murders of two people in the community. This book encompasses both ethnography and a critique of ethnographic writing. At one level, the book is about social, agricultural, technological, and religious changes that have occurred in a Lacandon Maya community in Mexico. At a second level, the book is a critique of those who invented a Utopian picture of a "traditional" Lacandon past that never really existed. For cultural anthropologists, or anyone interested in learning more about this Mayan culture.

In Watching Lacandon Maya Lives, the author follows three generations of one Lacandon Maya family. Readers track the subjects' lives as they shift through events such as marriage, parenthood, and religious conversion, all set against a backdrop of increased tourism, road construction, and the murders of two people in the community. This book encompasses both ethnography and a critique of ethnographic writing. At one level, the book is about social, agricultural, technological, and religious changes that have occurred in a Lacandon Maya community in Mexico. At a second level, the book is a critique of those who invented a Utopian picture of a "traditional" Lacandon past that never really existed. For cultural anthropologists, or anyone interested in learning more about this Mayan culture.

Presenting a selection of critical essays in anthropology from 1860 to the current day, this sixth edition of Anthropological Theory includes classic authors such as Tylor, Marx, Boas, Malinowski, Foucault, Turner, and Geertz as well as contemporary thinkers such as Appadurai, Abu-Lughod, and Bourgois. Most essays are reprinted without abridgement. Those that are shortened include notes explaining how much and what was removed. What sets McGee and Warms' text apart from other readers are its introductions, footnotes, and index. Detailed introductions examine critical developments in theory, introduce key people and discuss historical and personal influences on theorists. In extensive footnotes the editors provide commentary that puts the writing in historical and cultural context, defines unusual terms, translates non-English phrases, identifies references to other scholars and their works, and offers paraphrases and summaries of complex passages. The notes identify and provide background information on hundreds of scholars and concepts important in the development of anthropology. This makes the essays more accessible to both students and current day scholars. An extensive index makes this book an invaluable reference tool.

This comprehensive and engaging introduction to the anthropology of religion brings together a rich and balanced collection of classic and contemporary readings. Ideal for courses in the anthropology of religion or comparative religion, this exceptional anthology not only gives students the tools to analyze and comprehend religion but also enables them to consider religion's major role in contemporary world affairs.
Organized topically, Sacred Realms: Readings in the Anthropology of Religion, Second Edition, covers twelve major areas in faith, religion, and belief. Demonstrating the breadth and variety of human religious experience, the essays are written by authors from diverse ethnic and national backgrounds and include vivid ethnographic examples drawn from field studies around the world. The readings range from classic contributions by Bronislaw Malinowski, Horace Miner, and Anthony F. C. Wallace to more recent selections including one on the Rajneeshee by Charles Lindholm and articles on Sufism, witches, and American raves. The volume concludes with a unique section by the editors that describes the basic facets of five of the world's most influential religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The editors also provide helpful background material throughout; their general introduction encourages students to approach religion as an objective human experience rather than from the perspective of their own upbringings, while overviews to each of the text's six parts place subjects in context and highlight key issues. Essay introductions identify the author's perspective, the article's major points, and the questions the essay raises.
New to the secondedition of Sacred Realms is a section on the intersection of religion and politics, which includes a classic article by Raymond Firth as well as recent articles on issues in Korea and the Middle East. This edition also features a world map at the front of the book--referencing locations in each essay, by number--and a glossary of terms at the end of the book. An Instructor's Manual on CD is available to adopters.

Presenting a selection of critical essays in anthropology from 1860 to the current day, this sixth edition of Anthropological Theory includes classic authors such as Tylor, Marx, Boas, Malinowski, Foucault, Turner, and Geertz as well as contemporary thinkers such as Appadurai, Abu-Lughod, and Bourgois. Most essays are reprinted without abridgement. Those that are shortened include notes explaining how much and what was removed. What sets McGee and Warms' text apart from other readers are its introductions, footnotes, and index. Detailed introductions examine critical developments in theory, introduce key people and discuss historical and personal influences on theorists. In extensive footnotes the editors provide commentary that puts the writing in historical and cultural context, defines unusual terms, translates non-English phrases, identifies references to other scholars and their works, and offers paraphrases and summaries of complex passages. The notes identify and provide background information on hundreds of scholars and concepts important in the development of anthropology. This makes the essays more accessible to both students and current day scholars. An extensive index makes this book an invaluable reference tool.