Description
This edition is our biggest revision to date. In addi- tion to updating all the chapters and responding to suggestions from reviewers, we have added new fea- tures to each chapter. The most significant one is that each chapter now has two featured boxes high- lighting recent developments in the news as well as in anthropology and related disciplines. The boxes deal with three kinds of topics: current issues, re- search frontiers, and new perspectives on gender. We discuss the new boxes in some detail below. Then we list many of the other things that are new in each chapter. Many of the graphics in the book are new also.
As always, the book goes beyond description. We are interested not only in what humans were and are like; we are also interested in why humans are the way they are, why they got to be that way, and why they vary. When there are alternative explanations, we try to communicate the necessity to evaluate them both on logical grounds and on the basis of the available evidence. The chapter titled "Explanation and Evidence" is designed to help students dis- tinguish between theory and evidence and to see how explanations can be and have been tested. Throughout the book, we note when the available evidence is not clear or is still lacking. We will be pleased if we succeed in helping students under- stand that no idea, including ideas put forward in textbooks, should be accepted simply as authority.
ISBN: 9780133465457
