A powerful and innovative argument that explores the complexity of the human relationship with material things, demonstrating how humans and societies are entrapped into the maintenance and sustaining of material worlds Argues that the interrelationship of humans and things is a defining characteristic of human history and culture Offers a nuanced argument that values the physical processes of things without succumbing to materialism Discusses historical and modern examples, using evolutionary theory to show how long-standing entanglements are irreversible and increase in scale and complexity over time Integrates aspects of a diverse array of contemporary theories in archaeology and related natural and biological sciences Provides a critical review of many of the key contemporary perspectives from materiality, material culture studies and phenomenology to evolutionary theory, behavioral archaeology, cognitive archaeology, human behavioral ecology, Actor Network Theory and complexity theory

Entangled Things takes the concept of entanglement as its starting point in investigating the relationship between us and the material things we engage with. Each chapter illustrates a particular form of entanglement – desiring things, hoarding things, creating things, ridding ourselves of things – using ethnographic examples and theoretical perspectives. Hulme encourages a wider consideration of the place of humans in the world, and the kind of choices we enact when influenced by the material things around us. She explores our relationships with material objects in light of both personal and planetary ‘space’, and personal and historical time, from the space in our homes, storage spaces, landfill and oceans; to the times in our lives and the times in wider shared histories that things connect us to, not to mention our sense of time and our own place in the world. In so doing, Hulme intentionally places discussions on our entanglement with things squarely back into the context of the Anthropocene, with a provocative analysis in which the Anthropocene is posited as a concept which on one hand takes away human agency, placing us in the context of immense geological epochs, whilst on the other hand pushes agency upon humans, blaming us for the extreme challenges of the current era and looking to us to solve those challenges. For Hulme, material things are instrumental in helping us to grasp our existential place in the world and weave a way through the complications of living in epochal times.

Entangled Objects threatens to dislodge the cornerstone of Western anthropology by rendering permanently problematic the idea of reciprocity. All traffic, and commerce, whether economic or intellectual, between Western anthropologists and the rest of the world, is predicated upon the possibility of establishing reciprocal relations between the West and the indigenous peoples it has colonized for centuries.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Most appealing... technical accuracy and lightness of tone... Impeccable.”—Wall Street Journal “A porthole into another world.”—Scientific American “Brings science dissemination to a new level.”—Science The most trusted explainer of the most mind-boggling concepts pulls back the veil of mystery that has too long cloaked the most valuable building blocks of modern science. Sean Carroll, with his genius for making complex notions entertaining, presents in his uniquely lucid voice the fundamental ideas informing the modern physics of reality. Physics offers deep insights into the workings of the universe but those insights come in the form of equations that often look like gobbledygook. Sean Carroll shows that they are really like meaningful poems that can help us fly over sierras to discover a miraculous multidimensional landscape alive with radiant giants, warped space-time, and bewilderingly powerful forces. High school calculus is itself a centuries-old marvel as worthy of our gaze as the Mona Lisa. And it may come as a surprise the extent to which all our most cutting-edge ideas about black holes are built on the math calculus enables. No one else could so smoothly guide readers toward grasping the very equation Einstein used to describe his theory of general relativity. In the tradition of the legendary Richard Feynman lectures presented sixty years ago, this book is an inspiring, dazzling introduction to a way of seeing that will resonate across cultural and generational boundaries for many years to come.

Offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the theory of material entanglement and entrapment, enriched with vivid examples from everyday life Entangled explores how archaeological evidence can help provide a better understanding of the direction of human social and technological change, demonstrating how the interrelationship of humans and things is a defining characteristic of human history and culture. Using examples drawn from both the early farming settlements of the Middle East and daily life in the modern world, Ian Hodder highlights the complex co-dependencies of humans and things—arguing that the maintenance and sustaining of material worlds are the unseen drivers of human development. Updated and expanded, Entangled offers new perspectives on the study of the relationality between things and humans. In this edition, the author reframes relationality in terms of various forms of dependence to better explore inequality, injustice, and the ways people get entrapped in detrimental social and economic situations. An entirely new chapter focuses on human dependence on other humans, such as between colonial powers and colonized people. Increased focus is placed on object-oriented ontologies and assemblages, symmetrical archaeology, and indigenous and radical approaches in archaeology that critique relationality and posthumanism. A wide range of new examples, references, and literature are presented throughout the book. Argues that dependence on things forces humans down particular evolutionary pathways and social trends Demonstrates how long-standing entanglements can be irreversible and increase in scale and complexity over time Integrates archaeology, natural and biological sciences, and the social sciences Presents a critical review of key contemporary perspectives, including material culture studies, phenomenology, evolutionary theory, cognitive archaeology, human ecology, and complexity theory Entangled: A New Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things, Second Edition is essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students, lecturers, researchers, and scholars in the fields of archeology, anthropology, material culture studies, and related fields across the social sciences and humanities.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “brilliant [and] entrancing” (The Guardian) journey into the hidden lives of fungi—the great connectors of the living world—and their astonishing and intimate roles in human life, with the power to heal our bodies, expand our minds, and help us address our most urgent environmental problems. “Grand and dizzying in how thoroughly it recalibrates our understanding of the natural world.”—Ed Yong, author of An Immense World ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—Time, BBC Science Focus, The Daily Mail, Geographical, The Times, The Telegraph, New Statesman, London Evening Standard, Science Friday When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave. In the first edition of this mind-bending book, Sheldrake introduced us to this mysterious but massively diverse kingdom of life. This exquisitely designed volume, abridged from the original, features more than one hundred full-color images that bring the spectacular variety, strangeness, and beauty of fungi to life as never before. Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. They are metabolic masters, earth makers, and key players in most of life’s processes. They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and even help us remediate environmental disaster. By examining fungi on their own terms, Sheldrake reveals how these extraordinary organisms—and our relationships with them—are changing our understanding of how life works. Winner of the Wainwright Prize, the Royal Society Science Book Prize, and the Guild of Food Writers Award • Shortlisted for the British Book Award • Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize

Trade flowed across Eurasia, around the Indian Ocean, and over the Mediterranean for millennia, but in the early modern period, larger parts of the globe became connected through these established trade routes. Knowledge, embodied in various people, materials, texts, objects, and practices, also moved and came together along these routes in hubs of exchange where different social and cultural groups intersected and interacted. Entangled Itineraries traces this movement of knowledge across the Eurasian continent from the early years of the Common Era to the nineteenth century, following local goods, techniques, tools, and writings as they traveled and transformed into new material and intellectual objects and ways of knowing. Focusing on nonlinear trajectories of knowledge in motion, this volume follows itineraries that weaved in and out of busy, crowded cosmopolitan cities in China; in the trade hubs of Kucha and Malacca; and in centers of Arabic scholarship, such as Reyy and Baghdad, which resonated in Bursa, Assam, and even as far as southern France. Contributors explore the many ways in which materials, practices, and knowledge systems were transformed and codified as they converged, swelled, at times disappeared, and often reemerged anew.

Is everything connected? Can we sense what's happening to loved ones thousands of miles away? Why are we sometimes certain of a caller's identity the instant the phone rings? Do intuitive hunches contain information about future events? Is it possible to perceive without the use of the ordinary senses? Many people believe that "psychic phenomena" are rare talents or divine gifts. Others don't believe they exist at all. But the latest scientific research shows that these phenomena are both real and widespread, and are an unavoidable consequence of the interconnected, entangled physical reality we live in. Albert Einstein called entanglement "spooky action at a distance"—the way two objects remain connected through time and space, without communicating in any conventional way, long after their initial interaction has taken place. Could a similar entanglement of minds explain our apparent psychic abilities? Dean Radin, senior scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, believes it might. In this illuminating book, Radin shows how we know that psychic phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis are real, based on scientific evidence from thousands of controlled lab tests. Radin surveys the origins of this research and explores, among many topics, the collective premonitions of 9/11. He reveals the physical reality behind our uncanny telepathic experiences and intuitive hunches, and he debunks the skeptical myths surrounding them. Entangled Minds sets the stage for a rational, scientific understanding of psychic experience.

A superb combination of focused case studies and high level conceptual thinking, this volume is an important monument in the ongoing development of Inter-American studies The articles gathered here closely examine a wide variety of cultural phenomena implicated in the 'entanglements' which have defined the history of the Americas. From religious networks to music and dance, and across a range of literary and artistic works, the mobility of people, objects, and ideas in the Americas is expertly mapped. At the same time, the book represents a serious enterprise of theory-building. Drawing on the histories of postcolonial thought, mobility studies, and work on human migration, Mobile and Entangled America(s) clearly establishes a new interdisciplinary field attentive both to the complexities of cultural form and the pervasiveness of power relations. Each article stands as a significant piece of scholarship on its own, but all are in dialogue with each other. The result is a richly satisfying and important volume of cultural scholarship.

This book unfolds an exploratory journey intended to scrutinise the suitability of entanglements and relations as a mode of thinking and seeing peacebuilding events. Through a reflection upon the UN’s limited results in the endeavour towards securing lasting peace in war-torn scenarios, Torrent critically engages with three relevant debates in contemporary peacebuilding literature, including the inclusion of ‘the locals’, the achievement of organisational system-wide coherence and the increasingly questioned agential condition of peacebuilding actors. Inattentive to the relational vulnerability of involved stakeholders, it is suggested that the UN seeks to secure a totalising modern distory, defined in the book as a story that undoes other stories. Whilst affirming the entangled ontogenesis of actors and processes in the conflict-affected configuration, Entangled Peace also delves into a cautionary argument about what the author refers to as entanglement fetishism, namely the celebratory, normative, deterministic and exclusionary projection of a relational world. Inspired by Alfred North Whitehead, Entangled Peace is an invitation to speculate over the peacebuilding milieu, and by extension the broader theatre of the real, as radical openness, in which events emanate from the collision of an infinite multiplicity of possible worlds.