Trees, Knots and Outriggers (Kaynen Muyuw) is the culmination of twenty-five years of work by Frederick H. Damon and his attention to cultural adaptations to the environment in Melanesia. Damon details the intricacies of indigenous knowledge and practice in his sweeping synthesis of symbolic and structuralist anthropology with recent developments in historical ecology. This book is a long conversation between the author’s many Papua New Guinea informants, teachers and friends, and scientists in Australia, Europe and the United States, in which a spirit of adventure and discovery is palpable.

The incredible bestselling book from the author of No Barriers and The Adversity Advantage Erik Weihenmayer was born with retinoscheses, a degenerative eye disorder that would leave him blind by the age of thirteen. But Erik was determined to rise above this devastating disability and lead a fulfilling and exciting life. In this poignant and inspiring memoir, he shares his struggle to push past the limits imposed on him by his visual impairment-and by a seeing world. He speaks movingly of the role his family played in his battle to break through the barriers of blindness: the mother who prayed for the miracle that would restore her son's sight and the father who encouraged him to strive for that distant mountaintop. And he tells the story of his dream to climb the world's Seven Summits, and how he is turning that dream into astonishing reality (something fewer than a hundred mountaineers have done). From the snow-capped summit of McKinley to the towering peaks of Aconcagua and Kilimanjaro to the ultimate challenge, Mount Everest, this is a story about daring to dream in the face of impossible odds. It is about finding the courage to reach for that ultimate summit, and transforming your life into something truly miraculous. "An inspiration to other blind people and plenty of us folks who can see just fine."—Jon Krakauer, New York Times bestselling author of Into Thin Air

An environmental and cultural history of winter in the colonial Northeast, examining indigenous and settler knowledge of life in the cold.

This volume comprises a curated conversation between members of the Material Culture Section of University College London Anthropology. In laying out the state of play in the field, it challenges how the anthropology of material culture is being done and argues for new directions of enquiry and new methods of investigation. The contributors consider the ramifications of specific research methods and explore new methodological frameworks to address areas of human experience that require a new analytical approach. The case studies draw from a range of contexts, including digital objects, infrastructure, data, extraterrestriality, ethnographic curation, and medical materiality. They include timely reappraisals of now-classical analytical models that have shaped the way we understand the object, the discipline, knowledge formation, and the artefact.

Knots are well known as symbols of moral relationships. This book develops an exciting new view of this otherwise taken-for-granted image and considers their metaphoric value in and for moral order. In chapters that focus on Japan, China, Europe, South America and in several Pacific Island societies, granular ethnography depicts how knots are deployed to express unity in daily and ritual embodiment, political authority and the cosmos, as well as in social thought. The volume will be of interest to anthropologists and other scholars concerned with metaphor and symbolism, material culture and technology.

A charming, richly illustrated, pocket-size exploration of the world’s trees Packed with surprising facts, this delightful and gorgeously designed book will beguile any nature lover. Expertly written and beautifully illustrated throughout with color photographs and original color artwork, The Little Book of Trees is an accessible and enjoyable mini reference book about the world’s trees, with examples drawn from across the globe. It fits an astonishing amount of information in a small package, covering a wide range of topics—from tree anatomy, diversity, and architecture to habitat and conservation. It also includes curious facts and a section on trees in myths, folklore, and modern culture around the world. The result is an irresistible guide to the amazing lives of trees. A beautifully designed pocket-size book with a foil-stamped cloth cover Features some 140 color illustrations and photos Makes a perfect gift

A masterpiece of linguistics scholarship, at once erudite and entertaining, confronts the thorny question of how—and whether—culture shapes language and language, culture Linguistics has long shied away from claiming any link between a language and the culture of its speakers: too much simplistic (even bigoted) chatter about the romance of Italian and the goose-stepping orderliness of German has made serious thinkers wary of the entire subject. But now, acclaimed linguist Guy Deutscher has dared to reopen the issue. Can culture influence language—and vice versa? Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts? Could our experience of the world depend on whether our language has a word for "blue"? Challenging the consensus that the fundaments of language are hard-wired in our genes and thus universal, Deutscher argues that the answer to all these questions is—yes. In thrilling fashion, he takes us from Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, from how to name the rainbow to why Russian water—a "she"—becomes a "he" once you dip a tea bag into her, demonstrating that language does in fact reflect culture in ways that are anything but trivial. Audacious, delightful, and field-changing, Through the Language Glass is a classic of intellectual discovery.