In this exciting new volume from the Society for Economic Anthropology, Cynthia Werner and Duran Bell bring together a group of distinguished anthropologists and economists to discuss the complex ways in which different cultures imbue material objects with symbolic qualities whose value cannot be reduced to material or monetary equivalents. Objects with sacred or symbolic qualities are valued quite differently than mundane objects, and the contributors to this volume set out to unravel how...

From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower, a searching and provocative examination of the widespread institutional rot that threatens our collective futureWhat causes rich countries to lose their way? Symptoms of decline are all around us today: slowing growth, crushing debts, increasing inequality, aging populations, antisocial behavior. But what exactly has gone wrong? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues in

From renowned economist Thomas Sowell, an indispensable examination of widespread economic fallacies**"From one of America's most noted conservative economists, a short, original book that offers some unconventional ideas about how to think about common economic topics." ―**Baltimore SunIn Economic Facts and Fallacies, Thomas Sowell exposes some of the most popular fallacies about economic issues in a lively manner that do...

In Ethnicity, Inc. anthropologists John L. and Jean Comaroff analyze a new moment in the history of human identity: its rampant commodification. Through a wide-ranging exploration of the changing relationship between culture and the market, they address a pressing question: Wherein lies the future of ethnicity?Their account begins in South Africa, with the incorporation of an ethno-business in venture capital by a group of traditional African chiefs. But their horizons are...

In this lively undergraduate textbook, Kevin Gibson explores the relationship between ethics and the world of business, and how we can serve the interests of both. He builds a philosophical groundwork that can be applied to a wide range of issues in ethics and business, and shows readers how to assess dilemmas critically and work to resolve them on a principled basis. Using case studies drawn from around the world, he examines topics including stakeholder responsibilities, sustainability, ...

Revealing the human side of economic lifeOver the past three decades, economic sociology has been revealing how culture shapes economic life even while economic facts affect social relationships. This work has transformed the field into a flourishing and increasingly influential discipline. No one has played a greater role in this development than Viviana Zelizer, one of the world's leading sociologists. Economic Lives synthesizes and extends her most impo...

For twenty years, the renowned philosopher of science Sandra Harding has argued that science and technology studies, postcolonial studies, and feminist critique must inform one another. In The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader, Harding puts those fields in critical conversation, assembling the anthology that she has long wanted for classroom use. In classic and recent essays, international scholars from a range of disciplines think through a broad array of science...

The Company of Strangers shows us the remarkable strangeness, and fragility, of our everyday lives. This completely revised and updated edition includes a new chapter analyzing how the rise and fall of social trust explain the unsustainable boom in the global economy over the past decade and the financial crisis that succeeded it.Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, history, psychology, and literature, Paul Seabright explores how our evolved ability of abstract ...

Reimagining Political Ecology is a state-of-the-art collection of ethnographies grounded in political ecology. When political ecology first emerged as a distinct field in the early 1970s, it was rooted in the neo-Marxism of world system theory. This collection showcases second-generation political ecology, which retains the Marxist interest in capitalism as a global structure but which is also heavily influenced by poststructuralism, feminism, practice theory, and cultural studies...

While scores of strategic management books have been written, many books fail to take into consideration the influences that shape and constrain managers’ ability to formulate and execute well-thought out strategies. Demystifying Your Business Strategy acknowledges and harnesses those influences, providing practitioners with a helpful new approach to developing and maintaining a competitive advantage.In this book, David Lei and John W. Slocum offer readers a comprehensive ...

A wage is more than a simple fee in exchange for labor, argues Geoff Mann. Beyond being a quantitative reflection of productivity or bargaining power, a wage is a political arena in which working people’s identity, culture, and politics are negotiated and developed. In Our Daily Bread, Mann examines struggles over wages to reveal ways in which the wage becomes a critical component in the making of social hierarchies of race, gender, and citizenship.Combining a fresh analys...

Why economics needs to focus on fairness and not just efficiencyOne of the central tenets of mainstream economics is Adam Smith's proposition that, given certain conditions, self-interested behavior by individuals leads them to the social good, almost as if orchestrated by an invisible hand. This deep insight has, over the past two centuries, been taken out of context, contorted, and used as the cornerstone of free-market orthodoxy. In Beyond the Invisible Hand...