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Anthropology : appreciating human diversity
I wrote the first edition of this book during a time of rapid change in my favorite academic discipline— anthropology. My colleagues and I were excited about new discoveries and directions in all four of anthropology's subfields—biological anthropology, anthropological archaeology, sociocultural anthropol¬ogy, and linguistic anthropology. My goal was to write a book that would capture that excitement, that would address key changes in anthropology, while providing a solid foundation of core concepts and the basics.
Just as anthropology is a dynamic discipline that explores new discoveries and the profound changes that affect people and societies, this edition of Anthropology has kept pace with changes in the way stu¬dents read and learn core content today through the digital program called Connect Anthropology. This program includes assignable and assessable quizzes, exercises, and interactive activities, organized around course-specific learning objectives. In addition, Connect includes an interactive eBook, LearnSmart, an adaptive testing program, and SmartBook, the first and only adaptive reading experience. The tools and resources provided in Connect Anthropology are designed to engage students and enable them to improve their performance in the course.
While any competent text must present anthropology's core, it also must demonstrate anthropology's relevance to the 21st-century world we inhabit. Accordingly, several "Focus on Globalization" essays in this book examine topics as diverse as travel and tourism in the ancient and modern worlds, disease pandemics, world sports events (including the Olympics and the World Cup), and the expansion of inter¬national finance and branding. In addition, discussions of new media, including social media, have been added to several chapters.
Each chapter begins with a discussion titled "Understanding Ourselves." These introductions, along with examples from popular culture throughout the book, show how anthropology relates to students' everyday lives. My overarching goal for this textbook is to help students appreciate the field of anthropology and the various kinds of diversity it studies. How do anthropologists think and work? Where do we go, and how do we interpret what we see? How do we step back, compare, and analyze? How does anthropology contribute to our understanding of the world? To answer these questions, chapters contain boxed sections titled "Appreciating Anthropology," which focus on the value and usefulness of anthropological research and approaches. Other boxes, titled "Appreciating Diversity," focus on various forms and expressions of human biological and cultural diversity.
Most students who read this book will not go on to become anthropologists, or even anthropology majors. For those who do, this book should provide a solid foundation to build on. For those who don't— that is, for most of my readers—my goal is to instill a sense of appreciation: of human diversity, of anthropology as a field, and of how anthropology can build on, and help make sense of, the experience that students bring to the classroom. May this course and this text help students think differently about, and achieve greater understanding of, their own culture and its place within our globalizing world.
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