African Political Systems is a foundational work in the field of anthropology and political science, edited by Meyer Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard. First published in 1940, the book offers a comparative study of governance structures across various African societies, challenging earlier Western assumptions about political organization in non-Western cultures.Through a series of in-depth case studies, the book explores the diversity of political systems in African societies—rangin...

In 1930, anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard journeyed deep into the Sudanese savanna to uncover the mysteries of the nomadic Nuer tribes - this book presents his compelling discoveries.The harsh dry plains of the Sudan cannot sustain sufficient agriculture for the tribes; to thrive, the Nuer move their camps in accordance with the seasons. At the core of daily life are cattle whose milk and meat sustain the people; the cow's pliant, agreeable nature is ideal for a tribe to manage....

A fascinating and highly original contribution to the study of Egypt’s religious folklore.First published in Cairo during World War II, The Moulids of Egypt is a study of moulids, the popular Egyptian religious festivals celebrated by both Muslims and Christians in the first half of the twentieth century. The book talks in detail about the secular side of moulids, where sports, games, theatres, dancing, and laughter were as much part of the festivals as th...

This description of the political system of the Anuak is part of the results of two expeditions by the author to East Africa in 1940. Although Anuak country had been visited in 1855 by the Maltese Andrea Debono and Philippe Terranuova D'Antonio and by several other European travellers thirty to forty years ago, the Italian Bottego (1897),the French missions under De Bonchamps (1897) and Faivre {1898),Wellby (l899), Austin (1900), the German Oscar Neumann (1901), and the MacMillan Expeditio...

Social Anthropology explains and illustrates the methods of modern anthropology, tracing its development from pre-nineteenth-century philosophical speculations and the empirical work of explorers, missionaries and colonial servants, up to the second half of the twentieth century.First published in 1951.

First published in 1940 and this edition in 1987, this book is a comparative study of African political institutions. It describes different types of social organisation that are found in a number of African societies and analyses the principles underlying these traditional forms of government.The volume represents the results of field studies carried out by trained investigators in a number of areas, and was compiled and edited under the auspices of the International African Insti...

In Malaise of Modernity, Charles Taylor focuses on the key modern concept of self-fulfillment, often attacked as the central support of what Christopher Lasch has called the culture of narcissism. To Taylor, self-fulfillment, although often expressed in self-centered ways, isn't necessarily a rejection of traditional values and social commitment; it also reflects something authentic and valuable in modern culture. Only by distinguishing what is good in this modern striving from what is soc...

Rethinking questions of identity, social agency and national affiliation, Bhabha provides a working, if controversial, theory of cultural hybridity - one that goes far beyond previous attempts by others. In The Location of Culture, he uses concepts such as mimicry, interstice, hybridity, and liminality to argue that cultural production is always most productive where it is most ambivalent. Speaking in a voice that combines intellectual ease with the belief that theory itself can c...

The concept of law lies at the heart of our social and political life. Legal philosophy, or jurisprudence, explores the notion of law and its role in society, illuminating its meaning and its relation to the universal questions of justice, rights, and morality. In this Very Short Introduction Raymond Wacks analyses the nature and purpose of the legal system, and the practice by courts, lawyers, and judges. Wacks reveals the intriguing and challenging nature of legal philosophy wit...

In this pithy two-part essay, Marshall Sahlins reinvigorates the debates on what constitutes kinship, building on some of the best scholarship in the field to produce an original outlook on the deepest bond humans can have. Covering thinkers from Aristotle and Lévy- Bruhl to Émile Durkheim and David Schneider, and communities from the Maori and the English to the Korowai of New Guinea, he draws on a breadth of theory and a range of ethnographic examples to form an acute definition of kinsh...

What does it mean to be truthful? What role does truth play in our lives? What do we lose if we reject truthfulness? No philosopher is better suited to answer these questions than Bernard Williams. Writing with his characteristic combination of passion and elegant simplicity, he explores the value of truth and finds it to be both less and more than we might imagine.Modern culture exhibits two attitudes toward truth: suspicion of being deceived (no one wants to be fooled) and skepti...

One of the most influential philosophers in the English-speaking world, Charles Taylor is internationally renowned for his contributions to political and moral theory, particularly to debates about identity formation, multiculturalism, secularism, and modernity. In Modern Social Imaginaries, Taylor continues his recent reflections on the theme of multiple modernities. To account for the differences among modernities, Taylor sets out his idea of the social imaginary, a broad unders...