Anthropology History

Placing the West's failure to acknowledge the most successful slave revolt in history alongside denials of the Holocaust and the debate over the Alamo, Michel-Rolph Trouillot offers a stunning meditation on how power operates in the making and recording of history.

De la mano de uno de los historiadores más interesantes de la actualidad, he aquí la fascinante interpretación de Yuval Noah Harari sobre la historia de la humanidad. Bestseller nacional e internacional, este libro explora las formas en que la biología y la historia nos han definido y han mejorado nuestra comprensión de lo que significa ser "humano".

The Origin of Species sold out on the first day of its publication in 1859. It is the major book of the 19th century and one of the most readable and accessible of the great revolutionary works of the scientific imagination. Though, in fact, little read, most people know what it says—at least they think they do. The Origin of Species was the first mature and persuasive work to explain how species change through the process of natural selection. Upon its publication, the book began to transform attitudes about society and religion.

A definitive, comprehensive and engrossing chronicle of one of the greatest dynasties of the world—the Mughal—from its founder Babur to Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last of the clan the magnificent Mughal legacy is an inexhaustible source of inspiration to historians, writers, moviemakers, artists and ordinary mortals alike. Here is a fascinating and riveting saga that brings alive a spectacular bygone era—authentically and convincingly.

Nos últimos 100 mil anos, nós acumulamos um imenso poder. No entanto, mesmo com todas as nossas descobertas e conquistas, estamos diante de uma crise sem precedentes, com um colapso ambiental iminente e desinformação correndo solta. A chegada da era da inteligência artificial também representa um perigo para nós. Afinal, por que somos tão autodestrutivos apesar de tudo o que conquistamos? Nexus olha para a nossa história e avalia como o fluxo de informações moldou a nós e o mundo onde vivemos.

Discover the rich and complex history of the peoples of Africa, and the struggles and triumphs of Black cultures and communities around the world. With profiles of key people, movements, and events, The Black History Book brings together accounts of the most significant ideas and milestones in Black history and culture. This vital and thought-provoking audiobook presents a bold and accessible overview of the history of the African continent and its peoples - from the earliest human migrations to modern Black communities and the African diaspora.

Why have societies all across the world feared witchcraft? This book delves deeply into its context, beliefs, and origins in Europe's history. The witch came to prominence - and often a painful death - in early modern Europe, yet her origins are much more geographically diverse and historically deep. In this landmark book, Ronald Hutton traces witchcraft from the ancient world to the early modern state.

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean is nothing less than the story of how humans first started building the globalized world we know today. Set on a huge continental stage, from Europe to China, it is a tale covering more than 10,000 years, from the origins of farming around 9000 BC to the expansion of the Mongols in the 13th century AD.

Can forests think? Do dogs dream? In this astonishing book, Eduardo Kohn challenges the very foundations of anthropology, calling into question our central assumptions about what it means to be human - and thus distinct from all other life forms. Based on four years of fieldwork among the Runa of Ecuador's Upper Amazon, Kohn draws on his rich ethnography to explore how Amazonians interact with the many creatures that inhabit one of the world's most complex ecosystems.

For over a century we saw Neanderthals as inferior to Homo Sapiens. After new discoveries, the pendulum swung the other way and they are generally seen as our relatives: not quite human, but similar enough, and still not equal. Now, thanks to an ongoing revolution in palaeoanthropology in which he has played a key part, Ludovic Slimak shows us that they are something altogether different - and they should be understood on their own terms rather than by comparing them to ourselves. As he reveals in this stunning book, the Neanderthals had their own history, their own rituals, their own customs.

Authoritative and immediate, this is the classic account of the most powerful of the American Indian tribes. T. R. Fehrenbach traces the Comanches' rise to power, from their prehistoric origins to their domination of the high plains for more than a century until their demise in the face of Anglo-American expansion.

Grâce aux progrès de la science (archéologie, ADN...), les fantasmes ne sont plus de mise pour traiter de la Préhistoire. La vie quotidienne, les croyances, le régime alimentaire, la sexualité, les rites funéraires... de nos ancêtres n'ont pratiquement plus de secrets. Notre regard sur nos lointains ancêtres change. Finie la créature hirsute grognant dans sa peau de bête du fond d'une caverne.

The Most Human Human is a provocative, exuberant, and profound exploration of the ways in which computers are reshaping our ideas of what it means to be human. Its starting point is the annual Turing Test, which pits artificial intelligence programs against people to determine if computers can “think.” Named for computer pioneer Alan Turing, the Tur­ing Test convenes a panel of judges who pose questions—ranging anywhere from celebrity gossip to moral conundrums—to hidden contestants in an attempt to discern which is human and which is a computer.

Johannes Krause is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and a brilliant pioneer in the field of archaeogenetics - archaeology augmented by DNA sequencing technology - which has allowed scientists to reconstruct human history reaching back hundreds of thousands of years before recorded time. In this surprising account, Krause and journalist Thomas Trappe rewrite a fascinating chapter of this history, the peopling of Europe, that takes us from the Neanderthals and Denisovans to the present.

Just in the last three years a flood of new scientific findings, driven by revelations discovered in the human genome, has provided compelling new answers to many long-standing mysteries about our most ancient ancestors, the people who first evolved in Africa and then went on to colonize the whole world. Nicholas Wade weaves this host of news-making findings together for the first time into an intriguing new history of the human story before the dawn of civilization.

Surprising as it sounds, war has made humanity safer and richer. In War! What Is It Good For?, the renowned historian and archaeologist Ian Morris tells the gruesome, gripping story of 15,000 years of war, going beyond the battles and brutality to reveal what war has really done to and for the world. War, and war alone, has created bigger, more complex societies, ruled by governments that have stamped out internal violence.

Superior tells the disturbing story of the persistent thread of belief in biological racial differences in the world of science. If the vast majority of scientists and scholars disavowed these ideas and considered race a social construct, it was an idea that still managed to somehow survive in the way scientists thought about human variation and genetics. Dissecting the statements and work of contemporary scientists studying human biodiversity, Angela Saini shows us how, again and again, even mainstream scientists cling to the idea that race is biologically real.

Nigger: it is arguably the most consequential social insult in American history, though, at the same time, a word that reminds us of “the ironies and dilemmas, tragedies and glories of the American experience.” In this tour de force, distinguished Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy - author of the highly acclaimed Race, Crime, and the Law - “put[s] a tracer on nigger”, to identify how it has been used and by whom, while analyzing the controversies to which it has given rise.

"The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently," wrote David Graeber. A renowned anthropologist, activist, and author, Graeber was as well-known for his sharp, lively essays as he was for his iconic role in the Occupy movement and his paradigm-shifting tomes. Today we live amidst converging political, economic, and ecological crises, and yet our politics are dominated by either a "business as usual" attitude or nostalgia for a mythical past.

Tracing the migrations of the Denisovans and their interbreeding with Neanderthals and early human populations in Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Americas, Andrew Collins and Greg Little explore how the new mental capabilities of the Denisovan-Neanderthal and Denisovan-human hybrids greatly accelerated the flowering of human civilization over 40,000 years ago. They show how the Denisovans displayed sophisticated advances, including precision-machined stone tools and jewelry, tailored clothing, celestially-aligned architecture, and horse domestication.