Anthropology is a discipline very conscious of its history. Alan Barnard has written a clear, detailed overview of anthropological theory that brings out the historical contexts of the great debates, tracing the genealogies of theories and schools of thought. His book covers the precursors of anthropology: evolutionism in all its guises: diffusionism and culture area theories, functionalism and…

This is the first work to cover the entire history of social and cultural anthropology in a single volume. The authors provide a summary of the discipline in the nineteenth century, from the cultural theories of Herder, Morgna, and Tylor to the often neglected contributions of the German scholars of the period. The work of early-twentieth century anthropologists such as Boas and Malinowski in t…

The history of communications is a branch of the history of technology but, strictly speaking, it is in a category of its own. The goods produced by technology, whether a piece of machinery, a piece of clothing or a piece of furniture, are tangible: they perform some useful function. The goods produced by communications are messages. They are mostly useless but when they are useful they can be …

This book, a critical analysis of the dynamically interdependent histories of capitalism and economic theory, contends that the many are right, and sets out to show why. To do so, it is necessary to examine the dynamic interaction of two processes - the historical realities of capitalism and the evolution of the economic theory that supports it. Both have been thoroughly studied over many years…

this book bets on the future. It tries as much as possible to respond to the needs of those who are rapidly becoming integrated in modern life, and to the aspiration of the rising generations to an Islamic thought that is capable of taking account of the four major revolutions witnessed by humanity since the end of the Middle Ages in Europe. The first revolution was Copernicus?s discovery that …

This book is the fundamental starting point for the study of continuity and change in the global social, economic and political system over the longest historical term. Bringing together eminent interdisciplinary scholars, World System History considers the nature of social continuity back through history, resulting in a book which cuts across boundaries in social science and deals with at leas…

From the beginning, nuclear weapons have both terrified and fascinated us. Fear of the bomb motivated the first atomic program: the allure of the bomb?s power later propelled national leaders to build ever-larger arsenals. Today, fear of a nuclear attack by terrorists or another country has made nuclear proliferation the number one security threat facing the United States and many other nations…

In American business schools, accounting is treated primarily as ?accountingization? (Power and Laughlin, 1992), that is, as a body of technically refined calculations used by organizations to efficiently accomplish goals such as profit maximization. What, if any, theory that is taught reduces largely to cybernetics and systems theory, approaches eerily detached from the lived-realities of thos…

ow does a contemporary society restore to its public memory a momentous event like its own participation in transatlantic slavery? What are the stakes of once more restoring the slave trade to public memory? What can be learned from this history? Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace explores these questions in her study of depictions and remembrances of British involvement in the slave trade. Skillfully…

While much of the transportation systems in Europe and the United States are mature (if not senescent), the rest of the world is still planning, developing, and deploying new systems. The accomplishments and mistakes of places like the United Kingdom and the United States, then, can teach us lessons that may be applied to places where transportation remains nascent or adolescent. The Transporta…