Methods of Discovery is organized around strategies for deepening arguments in order to find the best ways to study social phenomena.

From the new celebrity culture that has emerged from reality television and the Internet, to the paparazzi-filled endgame of Princess Diana and the bizarre trials and tribulations of Michael Jackson, The Celebrity Culture Reader documents the significant role that celebrities occupy in contemporary culture. Combining classic essays and contemporary writings, The Celebrity Culture Reader investigates the cultural implications of this complex contemporary phenomenon.

Anthropology of Religion: The Basics is an accessible and engaging introductory text organized around key issues that all anthropologists of religion face. This book uses a wide range of historical and ethnographic examples to address not only what is studied by anthropologists of religion, but how such studies are approached. It addresses questions such as:

How do human agents interact with gods and spirits?

What is the nature of doing religious ethnography?

Can the immaterial be embodied i...

‘Criminal Careers’ follows the lives and criminal behaviours of 2,397 people in Poland, who as juveniles committed a crime and received a form of punishment from the juvenile court between the late 1980s and the year 2000.

With growing economic inequality and threats to the sustainability of human societies, Koh argues that cooperatives can play an important role in promoting decent work and reducing economic inequality in the 21st century, and thus urges policy makers to reignite policy discussions on cooperatives.

City provides an accessible yet critical introduction to one of the key ideas in human geography. While most of the world’s population now lives in cities, the definition and theoretical specification of the city nonetheless remains elusive. In this extensively updated second edition, Phil Hubbard considers the different ways that the lived and messy realities of urban life have been approached by geographers, past and present.

Situating these in the context of ongoing debates concerning gl...

The Social Dynamics of Family Violence explores family violence throughout the life course, from child abuse and neglect to intimate partner violence and elder abuse.

One of America's leading anthropolgists offers solutions to the perplexing question of why people behave the way they do.

Why do Hindus worship cows? Why do Jews and Moslems refuse to eat pork? Why did so many people in post-medieval Europe believe in witches?

Marvin Harris answers these and other perplexing questions about human behavior, showing that no matter how bizarre a people's behavior may seem, it always stems from identifiable and intelligble sources.