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Impersonal Power
In this volume. Heide Gerstenberger investigates the development of bourgeois state power by on the one hand proposing a critique of different variants of the structural-functionalist theory of the state and on the other hand analysing the examples of England and France. The central thesis of the work is that the bourgeois form of capitalist state power arose only where capitalist societies developed out of state structures that were already rationalised.
Hierarchy
On the basis of diverse ethnographic contexts in Oceania, Asia, and the Middle East, the author's challenge current conceptions of hierarchical formations and reassess former debates, both with regard to new theoretical issues and the new world situation of post-colonial and neocolonial agendas.
Inalienable Possessions
"Weiner provides not only a new perspective on social and natural reproduction but also a framework through which to compare societies. This is an original point of view that will have real effects on the direction of future fieldwork and comparative analysis."—Ivan Karp, Smithsonian Institution
Bacchanalian Sentiments
An ethnographic exploration of the relationship between music and social and political consciousness on the island of Trinidad.
Colonialism in Question
In this closely integrated collection of essays on colonialism in world history, Frederick Cooper raises crucial questions about concepts relevant to a wide range of issues in the social sciences and humanities, including identity, globalization, and modernity. Rather than portray the past two centuries as the inevitable movement from empire to nation-state, Cooper places nationalism within a much wider range of imperial and diasporic imaginations, of rulers and ruled alike, well into the twentieth century. He addresses both the insights and the blind spots of colonial studies in an effort to get beyond the tendency in the field to focus on a generic colonialism located sometime between 1492 and the 1960s and somewhere in the "West." Broad-ranging, cogently argued, and with a historical focus that moves from Africa to South Asia to Europe, these essays, most published here for the first time, propose a fuller engagement in the give-and-take of history, not least in the ways in which concepts usually attributed to Western universalism—including citizenship and equality—were defined and reconfigured by political mobilizations in colonial contexts.
The Politics of Rationality
What are reason and rationality? How significant are recent postmodernist and neuroscientific challenges to these longheld notions? Should we abandon a belief in reason and an adherence to rationality? Or can reason and rationality be reformulated and reframed? And what does politics have to do with how we think about reason and why we act more or less rationally? The Politics of Rationality differs from other books with "reason" or “rationality” due to its historical, political, depth-psychological, and multidisciplinary approach to understanding reason through history. Charles P. Webel eloquently clarifies the links among ideas, their creators, the relevant mental processes, and the po...
What Makes Civilization?
A vivid new account of the 'birth of civilization' in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia where many of the foundations of modern life were laid
Reading Subaltern Studies
In recent years, the most important and influential change in the historiography of South Asia, and particularly India, has been brought about by the globally renowned 'Subaltern Studies' project that began 20 years ago. The present volume of critiques and readings of the project represents the first comprehensive historical introduction to Subaltern Studies and the worldwide debates it has generated among scholars of history, politics and sociology. The volume provides a reliable point of departure for new readers of Subaltern Studies and a resource base for experienced readers, who want to revive critical debates. In his introduction, David Ludden traces the intellectual history of subalte...
What Kinship Is-And Is Not
In this pithy two-part essay, Marshall Sahlins reinvigorates the debates on what constitutes kinship, building on some of the best scholarship in the field to produce an original outlook on the deepest bond humans can have. Covering thinkers from Aristotle and Lévy- Bruhl to Émile Durkheim and David Schneider, and communities from the Maori and the English to the Korowai of New Guinea, he draws on a breadth of theory and a range of ethnographic examples to form an acute definition of kinship, what he calls the “mutuality of being.” Kinfolk are persons who are parts of one another to the extent that what happens to one is felt by the other. Meaningfully and emotionally, relatives live e...
Collision of Wills
Minor debts, derisive remarks, a fight over a parking space, butting in line—these are the little things that nevertheless account for much of the violence in human society. But why? Roger V. Gould considers this intriguing question in Collision of Wills. He argues that human conflict is more likely to occur in symmetrical relationships—among friends or social equals—than in hierarchical ones, wherein the difference of social rank between the two individuals is already established. This, he maintains, is because violence most often occurs when someone wants to achieve superiority or dominance over someone else, even if there is no substantive reason for doing so. In making the case for this original idea, Gould explores a diverse range of examples, including murders, blood feuds, vendettas, revolutions, and the everyday disagreements that compel people to act violently. The result is an intelligent and provocative work that restores the study of conflict to the center of social inquiry.
