A major treatment of the crucial years 1848-1875 - a penetrating analysis of the rise of capitalism throught the world. In the 1860s a new word entered the economic and political vocabulary of the world: "capitalism". The global triumph of capitalism is the major theme of history in the decades after 1848. It was the triumph of a society which believed that economic growth rests on competitve private enterprise, on success in buying everything in the cheapest market (including labour) and selling it in the dearest. An economy so based, and therefore nestling naturally on the sound foundations of a bourgeoisie composed of those whom energy, merit and intelligence had raised to their position and kept there, would - it was believed - not only create a world of suitably distributed material plenty but of ever-growing enlightenment, reason and human opportunity, an advance of the sciences and the arts, in brief a world of continuous and accelerating material and moral progress.

In this collection of illuminating, incisive and thought-provoking essays, Eric Hobsbawm examines every aspect of the issues that have inspired the greatest debate - not only among politicians, academics and commentators but among all of us - in recent years: that is, the effects of globalisation, the plight of democracy and the threat of terrorism. As we are only too aware, all of these have the power to affect our daily lives, from the state of our economies to the fear of murderous bomb attacks in our cities. Hobsbawm discusses war and peace in our lifetime, problems of public order, anarchy and terrorism, nationalism and the changing nature of the nation-state, and the future prospects for democracy, setting out the historical background and the lessons it can offer us. Above all, he turns his piercing gaze to the Middle East and Western imperialism. Engaging, erudite and demonstrating his characteristically firm grasp of the facts and statistics, Hobsbawm's essays are indispensable to our understanding of the world we live in.

In these essays, about a quarter of them previously unpublished, Eric Hobsbawm reflects upon the theory, practice and development of history and its relevance to the modern world. These wide-ranging papers reflect Professor Hobsbawm's lifelong concern with the relations between past, present and future. They deal, among many other subjects, with the problems of writing history, its abuses and the historian's responsibilities; with the history of society and 'history from below'; with Marx and current historical trends or fashions; with Europe, the Russian Revolution and the descent into a world-wide barbarism that, increasing for most of the twentieth century, threatens to destroy the civilisation we have inherited from the European Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. These essays reveal a passionate belief in the importance of studying history, as well as displaying the incisive analysis, the breadth of allusion and the distinctive viewpoint for which this great historian is justly famous.

Many of the traditions which we think of as very ancient in their origins were not in fact sanctioned by long usage over the centuries, but were invented comparatively recently. This book explores examples of this process of invention - the creation of Welsh and Scottish ‘national culture’; the elaboration of British royal rituals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the origins of imperial rituals in British India and Africa; and the attempts by radical movements to develop counter-traditions of their own. It addresses the complex interaction of past and present, bringing together historians and anthropologists in a fascinating study of ritual and symbolism which poses new questions for the understanding of our history.

This outstanding history describes and accounts for Britain's rise as the world's first industrial world power, its decline from the temporary dominance of the pioneer, its rather special relationship with the rest of the world (notably the underdeveloped countries) and the effects of all these on the life of the British people.

The Evolution of Culture seeks to explain the origins, evolution and character of human culture, from language, art, music and ritual to the use of technology and the beginnings of social, political and economic behavior. It is concerned not only with where and when human culture evolved, but also asks how and why. The book draws together original contributions by archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists and psychologists. By integrating evolutionary biology with the social sciences, it shows how contemporary evolutionary thinking can inform the study of the peculiarly human phenomenon of culture. The contributors call into question the gulf currently separating the natural from the cultural sciences. Human capacities for culture, they argue, evolved through standard processes of natural and sexual selection and can be properly analyzed as biological adaptations. The Evolution of Culture is fully referenced and indexed and contains a guide to further reading. It is accessibly written and will be sure to appeal to the growing multidisciplinary readership now asking questions about human origins.
-- from Amazon.com

Starting with its origins in the work of Charles Darwin, the book covers all the key areas of evolutionary psychology, including the role played by genetics in our sexual behavior, parental decision-making, and how babies learn about and adapt to the world.

Examining the widespread sense of the "difficulty" of science, this work considers why many people find it so hard to grasp how science works, why there is so much suspicion of its success, and why many still seek refuge in religion or New Age spirituality. The author draws on anthropological and psychological material, as well as physics, astronomy and chemistry, and provides a wealth of detail and scientific information.

本书诚实但又不失风趣地记录了作为人类学家的作者在非洲喀麦隆多瓦悠人村落两次进行田野工作的经历，将人类学家如何克服乏味、灾难、生病与敌意的真实田野生活拍案叫绝地呈现在读者面前。
不同于一般的人类学研究报告，这是一部令人捧腹不止的人类学笔记，透过幽默的笔调，读者看到了人类学者如何与研究对象进行互动，在互动中如何调整他的学术成见，以及田野工作上的琐事如何影响后来研究结果、研究的盲点与反思。因此不管是严肃的读者、无聊地只想打发时间或者是向往非洲原始部落的异国情调而蠢蠢欲动的旅人，巴利这本书绝对是一个有趣的选择。

本书概述了身体研究领域的最新进展，提出创新框架来分析具身体现，融贯了有关该主题的古典探讨与当代研究，力主将身体解读为社会之构成过程中的多维中介；并在此基础上铺陈一系列具体分析，从经济、文化、社交、工作到运动、音乐、技术，将身体与多个领域联系到一起，为研究者聚焦主题，引初学者进入殿堂。

Gregory Bateson was a philosopher, anthropologist, photographer, naturalist, and poet, as well as the husband and collaborator of Margaret Mead. With a new foreword by his daughter Mary Katherine Bateson, this classic anthology of his major work will continue to delight and inform generations of readers.

"This collection amounts to a retrospective exhibition of a working life. . . . Bateson has come to this position during a career that carried him not only into anthropology, for which he was first trained, but into psychiatry, genetics, and communication theory. . . . He . . . examines the nature of the mind, seeing it not as a nebulous something, somehow lodged somewhere in the body of each man, but as a network of interactions relating the individual with his society and his species and with the universe at large."—D. W. Harding, New York Review of Books

"[Bateson's] view of the world, of science, of culture, and of man is vast and challenging. His efforts at synthesis are tantalizingly and cryptically suggestive. . . .This is a book we should all read and ponder."—Roger Keesing, American Anthropologist