Offers a new conceptual framework to help readers engage in productive, civil dialogues about public policy, liberty, and the role of government in modern American society.This book addresses the central question: How much government do we need to be free? This question has been at the core of the American policy-making process ever since the colonists fought for independence from Britain. In recent years, it has become increasingly difficult to have calm, rational...

Our understanding of the evolution of human behavior has grown enormously over the past few decades, and an increasing number of behavioral and social scientists are making use of evolutionary theory in their work to shed light on issues ranging from marriage and parenting to the study of mental illness. The success of this research program is thre

This book focuses on the strategic manipulation of ethnic identity by the Mukogodo of Kenya. It is about how Mukogodo people changed their way of life to a radically different one, that is their change as Maasai people, giving them a new way of living, a new language, and a new set of beliefs.

Economic development is an important focus of anthropological work in rural and urban communities around the world, and in this volume the contributors offer expert analyses on the theory and practice of development. Chapters cover the key topics of market systems, agricultural knowledge, modernization, population growth, participatory development, conservation strategies, culturally sustainable development, globalization and privatization, tourism, urban development, and financial markets...

A revolutionary approach to the study of cooperation that unites evolutionary biology and the social sciencesFrom the family to the workplace to the marketplace, every facet of our lives is shaped by cooperative interactions. Yet everywhere we look, we are confronted by proof of how difficult cooperation can be—snarled traffic, polarized politics, overexploited resources, social problems that go ignored. The benefits to oneself of a free ride on the efforts of othe...

From the author of No.1 international bestseller Collapse, a mesmerizing portrait of the human past that offers profound lessons for how we can live todayVisionary, prize-winning author Jared Diamond changed the way we think about the rise and fall of human civilizations with his previous international bestsellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse. Now he returns with another epic - and groundbreaking - journey into our rapidly receding ...

For thirty years, Peter Singer's Practical Ethics has been the classic introduction to applied ethics. For this third edition, the author has revised and updated all the chapters and added a new chapter addressing climate change, one of the most important ethical challenges of our generation. Some of the questions discussed in this book concern our daily lives. Is it ethical to buy luxuries when others do not have enough to eat? Should we buy meat from intensively reared animals? Am I doin...

Why are people nice to each other? What are the reasons for altrusim? Matt Ridley explains how the human mind has evolved a special instinct for social exchange, offering a lucid and persuasive argument about the paradox of human benevolence.

Bringing together new essays by philosophers and activists, In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave highlights the new challenges facing the animal rights movement.Exciting new collection edited by controversial philosopher Peter Singer, who made animal rights into an international concern when he first published In Defence of Animals and Animal Liberation over thirty years agoEssays explore new ways of measuring animal suf...

A “brilliant” (Chicago Review of Books), “elegantly written, and compelling” (National Review) new theory and call to action on animal rights, ethics, and law from the renowned philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum.Animals are in trouble all over the world. Whether through the cruelties of the factory meat industry, poaching and game hunting, habitat destruction, or neglect of the companion animals that people purport to love, animals suffer injustice an...

'A dazzlingly original picture of our relentlessly mobile species**'** NAOMI KLEIN'Fascinating . . . Likely to prove prophetic in the coming months and years' OBSERVER**'A dazzling tour through 300 years of scientific history'**PROSPECT'A hugely entertaining, life-affirming and hopeful hymn to the glorious adaptability of life on earth'

Author and scholar Robert Edgerton challenges the notion that primitive societies were happy and healthy before they were corrupted and oppressed by colonialism. He surveys a range of ethnographic writings, and shows that many of these so-called innocent societies were cruel, confused, and misled.