Money’s penetration into social life: a historical approach
Written by Keith Hart [Summary: The two centuries since the industrial revolution are a blink of the eye of world …
Written by Keith Hart [Summary: The two centuries since the industrial revolution are a blink of the eye of world …
Anthropologist David Graeber’s celebrated theory of “bullshit jobs” continues to provide a critical window into why modern work is often so useless, soul-sucking, and absurd. This article was…
In Born to Rule, Sam Friedman and Aaron Reeves examine how Britain’s elite continues to reproduce itself through entrenched structures of privilege, despite the appearance of increased meritocra…
An anthropologist reports on the impediments to labor organizing—and why it’s still worth trying. ✽ In the notoriously anti-union U.S. South, a Volkswagen plant unionized. After months of…
The scientific community in Argentina is facing a crisis. In response, scientists are protesting to stand up for their work and community. María Pía Tavella is an Argentine…
In the epicenter of fast fashion, a small cohort of Chinese eco-friendly designers is amplifying the call for a less wasteful and environmentally destructive clothing culture. ✽ While…
Dan Evans’s A Nation of Shopkeepers explores the growth of the “petty bourgeoisie” in the UK following Thatcherism, as the rise of home ownership, small landlordism and changes to the…
Written by Keith Hart 4. Sex divisions in the Caribbean and West Africa I spent two years of fieldwork in …
Written by Keith Hart 2. The agrarian phase of peasant patriarchy and the anomaly of slavery Families based on a …
In a brief documentary, an anthropologist provides a glimpse into the precarious lives of poor older Peruvians whose experiences mirror those of countless elders around the world. ✽…
Written by John Keith Hart Introduction The idea of a sexual division of labor rests on asserting that men and …
In Understanding Humans: How Social Science Can Help Solve Our Problems, David Edmonds curates a selection of interviews with social science researchers covering the breadth of human life and society,…
In A Theory of Everyone: Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going, Michael Muthukrishna contends that the core issue affecting Western societies is increasing energy…
Public health officials say opioid use and related deaths have reached a crisis point in the U.S. An interview with anthropologist and psychiatrist Helena Hansen unpacks the racial…
by Keith Hart Religion belongs to a set of terms that also includes art and science. The last, whichbegan as …
In Nudging, Riccardo Viale explores the evolution of nudging (behavioural mechanisms to encourage people to make certain choices) and proposes new approaches that would empower rather than paternalise…
In The Golden Passport: Global Mobility for Millionaires, Kristin Surak investigates how selling citizenship to the uber-rich has transformed from an anomalous activity offered by a handful of microst…
Written by Keith Hart World society has been formed as a single interactive network in our time. Universal means of …
Ha-Joon Chang. Edible Economics: A Hungry Economist Explains the World. New York: Hachette Book Group, 2022. Xxvi + 192 pp. ISBN #9781541700543 David Sutton (Southern Illinois University) T…
To learn what conditions are really like for Amazon workers, an anthropologist has joined their ranks. ✽ My first day of work in an Amazon warehouse I was…
Drawing from cross-cultural research, an anthropologist shows how neighborliness can lessen wealth-based health disparities. DOES GOOD HEALTH REQUIRE WEALTH? The poorest people in the U.S. spend their…
Most cherry blossom trees planted in Japan today are the iconic pale-pink somei-yoshino variety—but its reign may be coming to an end. SAKURA FEVER I was in Japan…
Edward F. Fischer. Making Better Coffee: How Maya Farmers and Third Wave Tastemakers Create Value. University of California Press. Berkeley: 2022. ISBN: 978-0-520-38696-9 David Sutton (Souther…
Max Haiven Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire. Pluto Press, London, 2022. ISBN 9780745345826. Leonidas Vournelis (Baruch College) Max Haiven’s Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire explores an…