This work abandons the conventional distinctions between history and science. Diamond focuses on what ancient people were endowed with in the way of land, animals and plants, and on the confrontations between less and more advanced people to see how this led to today's inequalities.

Talks about the mysterious collapse of past civilizations - and what this means for the future. Bringing together evidence from many sources and piecing together the myriad influences, from climate to culture, that make societies self-destruct, this book shows how unlike our ancestors we can benefit from our knowledge of the past.

Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941) is rightly regarded as one of the founders of modern anthropology. This volume is the author's own abridgement of his great work, and was first published in 1922. It offers the thesis that man progresses from magic through religious belief to scientific thought.

Presents man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape, remarkable in his resilience, energy and imagination, yet an animal nonetheless, in danger of forgetting his origins. This work provides insights on man's beginnings, sex life, habits and our astonishing bonds to the animal kingdom.

More than 98 percent of human genes are shared with two species of chimpanzee. The 'third' chimpanzee is man. This work surveys life-cycle, culture, sexuality and destructive urges both towards ourselves and the planet to explore the ways in which we are uniquely human yet still influenced by our animal origins.

Takes a look at the quirks, habits and foibles of the English people. This work puts the English national character under the anthropological microscope, and finds a strange culture, governed by complex sets of unspoken rules and byzantine codes of behaviour. It also discovers what these unwritten behaviour codes tell us about Englishness.

Colin Turnbull lived among the pygmies of the Ituri Forest in the Congo as their friend. He writes about their hunting parties, their nomadic camps, their quarrels and love affairs, their music and their ceremonies. It is an account of an earthly paradise and of a legendary and delightful people.

A study of heroism in the myths of the world - an exploration of all the elements common to the great stories that have helped people make sense of their lives from the earliest times. It takes in Greek Apollo, Maori and Jewish rites, the Buddha, Wotan, and the bothers Grimm's Frog-King.

The structural method, first set forth in this epoch-making book, changed the very face of social anthropology. This reissue of a classic will reintroduce readers to Lvi-Strausss understanding of man and society in terms of individualskinship, social organization, religion, mythology, and art.

In this classic work Mary Douglas identifies the concern for pirity as a key theme at the heart of every society. She reveals its wide-ranging impact on our attitudes tp society, values, cosmology and knowledge.

When first published, The Gift served as nothing less than an onslaught on contemporary political theory. This edition confirms the continuing relevance of Mauss's highly original perspective.

Gregory Bateson was a philosopher, anthropologist, photographer, naturalist and poet, as well as the husband and collaborator of Margaret Mead. This anthology of his major work contains a foreword by his daughter Mary Katherine Bateson.

A personal account of the life of a woman from the Kalahari desert who is capable of foraging on her own in one of the world's most hostile environments. She was married at twelve and later separated, divorced and widowed and the mother of four children, none of whom survived.

First book in the Don Juan series. The author meets Don Juan and is introduced to his magical world and philosophy by means of hallucinogenic plants and special exercises.

This study concerns the city dweller. Morris finds remarkable similarities with captive zoo animals and looks closely at the aggressive, sexual and parental behaviour of the human species under the stresses and pressures of urban living.

Oliver Sacks travels once again in search of human diversity, to the South Pacific atoll of Pingelap, where he finds that a high proportion of the population is colourblind and investigates the causes and effects of that condition. This book explores the islands, the people and their case studies.

This is the story of how Thor Heyderdahl and five other men crossed the Pacific Ocean on a balsa-wood raft in an extraordinary bid to prove Heyderdahl's theory that the Polynesians undertook the same feat on such a craft over 1000 years ago.