The late anthropologist Valerio Valeri (1944-1998) was best known for his substantial writings on societies of Polynesia and eastern Indonesia. This volume, however, presents a lesser-known side of Valeri's genius through a dazzlingly erudite set of...

Author, scholar, and editor Lynne Vallone has an international reputation in the field of child studies. In this analytical tour-de-force, she explores bodily size difference – particularly unusual bodies, big and small – as an overlooked yet crucial...

"Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Art" explores the portable artifacts of eastern Mediterranean pilgrimage from the fifth to the seventh century, presenting them in the context of contemporary pilgrims' texts and the archaeology of sacred sites. The book s...

"Astronomers, Scribes, and Priests" examines evidence for cultural interchange among the intellectual powerbrokers in Postclassic Mesoamerica, specifically those centered in the northern Maya lowlands and the central Mexican highlands. Contributors t...

"Living involves being exposed to pain every second – not necessarily as an insistent reality, but always as a possibility", writes Arne Johan Vetlesen in "A Philosophy of Pain", a thought-provoking look at an inevitable and essential aspect of the h...