Cultural Anthropology A Problem-Based Approach

This widely adopted text provides a fresh look at cultural anthropology and challenges students to engage in active and collaborative learning and critical thinking, as well as to recognize their own cultures as a basis for understanding the cultures of others. The book is organized around problems rather than topics, creating a natural and integrated discussion of such traditional concerns as kinship, caste, gender roles, and religion within the context of meaningful questions, including How can people begin to understand beliefs and behaviors that are different from their own. How do societies give meaning to and justify collective violence? Why are some societies more industrially advanced that others? What can anthropology tell us about attempts to link intelligence and class?

Richard H. Robbins is professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh