Cultural Anthropology: Tribes, States and the Global System - Softcover

For domestic-scale, autonomous tribal cultures, political-scale, class-based civilizations, and commercial-scale, industrial and market-based civilizations, universal issues about the human condition are explored from a comparative, anthropological perspective.
The text focuses on a few cultures in great depth, offering extended examples of selected sociocultural systems and detailed ethnographic analyses.
Students are challenged to consider big questions about the nature of humanity and cultural systems: How do cultures of different scale meet the challenge of maximizing human security? What human inequalities are natural and which are cultural? What are the human costs and benefits of socioeconomic growth?
The author takes a critical look at our global future by examining capitalism, industrialization, development issues, humanitarian concerns, and environmental issues.
The text provides strong critical thinking and learning aids including study questions, timelines, two types of glossaries, chapter summaries, suggested readings, and a bibliography.
The theoretical focus has been simplified to emphasize the interconnected themes of culture, cultural process, growth, and social power.
Culture scale labels have been changed from "small-, large-, and global-scale" to "domestic-, political-, and commercial-scale."
The dual emphasis on biology and culture has been strengthened.
The text includes new ethnohistorical data on European and American industrialization including information on American "power elites."
A discussion of the risks and rewards of commercial culture is incorporated throughout the text.

John H. Bodley is Regents Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University.