Arnold van Gennep's masterwork, "The Rites of Passage", has been a staple of anthropological education for more than a century. First published in French in 1909, and translated into English by the University of Chicago Press in 1960, this landmark b...

In this brilliant work, Amanda Vickery unlocks the homes of Georgian England to examine the lives of the people who lived there. Writing with her customary wit and verve, she introduces us to men and women from all walks of life: gentlewoman Anne Dor...

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...

In the mysterious and pristine forests of the tropics, a wealth of ethnobotanical panaceas and shamanic knowledge promises cures for everything from cancer and AIDS to the common cold. To access such miracles, we need only to discover and protect the...

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...