Social Science : Customs & Traditions

During the years he spent among the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq—long before they were almost completely wiped out by Saddam Hussein—Wilfred Thesiger came to understand, admire, and share a way of life that had endured for many centuries. Traveling from village to village by canoe, he won acceptance by dispensing medicine and treating the sick. In this account of a nearly lost civilization, he pays tribute to the hospitality, loyalty, courage, and endurance of the people, and describes their impressive reed houses, the waterways and lakes teeming with wildlife, the herding of buffalo and hunting of wild boar, moments of tragedy, and moments of pure comedy in vivid, engaging detail. more...

Price: $15.00

A significant work by one of anthropology's most important scholars, this book provides an introduction to the Chiapas Mayan community of Mexico, better known for their role in the Zapatista Rebellion. more...

Price: $36.95

Is obsession with the Royal Family in Britain a fact of culture or an illusion of media culture? What interest do the European media display in their royal families? Does twenty-first century monarchy remain a political and ideological force - or is it just an economic commodity? Media, Monarchy and Power provides a radical insight into the cultural and political functioning of royalty in five countries. Blain and O'Donnell examine the bonds between monarchies and their 'subjects' or 'citizens', and the relationships between royal families, the media, and nation-states. Numerous case-studies from press and television in Europe and the UK support a theoretical account of the operation of monarchy and royalty in the media. Central to the concerns of Media, Monarchy and Power are the complex relationship between Britain and Europe and the limits of British political modernization. more...

Price: $10.00

Alev Çinar's examination of contemporary Turkey, which stands at the threshold of East and West, of religious and secular nationalism, explores modernity through daily practices and the social construction of identity and political agency in relation to nationalism, secularism, and Islam. Using local details and debates—including an intriguing discussion of veiling—Çinar reveals modernity as a transformative intervention in bodies, places, and times. more...

Price: $60.00

First published in 1983, Mourning Dress chronicles the development of European and American mourning dress and etiquette from the middle ages to the present day, highlighting similarities and differences in practices between the different social strata. The result is a book which is not only of major importance to students of the history of dress but also to anyone who enjoys social history.  . more...

Price: $39.00