Book Catalog
Our Kind
Who We Are, Where We Came From, and Where We Are Going
By Marvin Harris
Our Price: $13.60 (Save 20%)
Same price as Amazon -- with faster service!
Original Cover Price: $17.00
Our Item Code: kind
Postage Code: book1.5
547 Pages, Trade Paperback
Cover Size: 5 x 8 inches
Harper Perennial
Related listings: Anthropology and Human Origins
Date: 1989
ISBN: 0-06-091990-6
Country of Origin: USA
Added to Catalog: 2/5/97
(Revised 12/96)
WIRT: 55505155
Availability: This item is usually in stock and available for immediate
Priority Mail shipment. Order it today (by 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific),
and you will probably have it in 2-3 days (in USA).
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Our Review |
Opinion of the webmaster, subject to debate |
Credibility
5
Very High |
Research Value
5
Very High |
Cultural Interest
5
Very High |
Visual Information
0
None |
Style
5
Stunning |
Silliness
1
Very Low |
Wow Factor
5
Wow! |
Bargain
5
Very High |
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Explanation of Ratings
Credibility = Very High: In general, this catagory is a rating of the author's intellectual discipline
and the strength of his argument (which are very high), not the veracity of his claims (which could be false in spite of the strong argument).
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Offers a series of entertaining essays by
anthropologist Marvin Harris on modern human behavior
based on our evolutionary origins. Seemingly random
human characteristics, like male baldness and female
longevity, become understandable in the context of the
African savanna where homo sapiens presumably evolved
into its modern form. There is much ammunition here
for the war of the sexes, as well as many profound
observations on why people behave as they do.
-- Glenn Campbell
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Information from the Publisher |
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Publisher's Synopsis
Marvin Harris tells how we evolved from apes, acquired powers
of speech, and went on to fill the world with a dazzling
diversity of societies and cultures. Writing with the same wit,
humor and style of his earlier bestsellers, this noted
anthropologist traces our roots and views our eventual destiny.
From the Book Cover
"In the beginning was the foot."
Before consciousness formed and tools were made, before speech was learned
and cultures were established, before religion, society, politics, and war,
came a simple evolutionary change: one primate, our common ancestor, took the
first upright step. So begins our family history.... the story told by
Marvin Harris in OUR KIND. The tale explores topics as varied as how the
different races arose; why marriage and the nuclear family were established;
why we overeat; how men came to dominate politics; why women have longer
lifespans; why yuppies are such conspicuous consumers; how war has come to
overshadow us, and whether it always will...and a great deal more.
"A Big Bang of a book....Marvin Harris seeks to do nothing less than bring us
from the dimmest origins of human kind to our present day"
The Milwaukee Journal
"The best approach to the tricky problem of understanding humans as
culture-bearing animals that has appeared in recent years."
Niles Eldredge, Curator, American Museum of Natural History
"A feast for the reader...the most entertaining, the most informative, the
best general book on the origins and role of culture in shaping our lives."
Dr. Melvin Lonner, author of The Tangled Wing
Marvin Harris is one of the best known and most influential anthropologist
today. His sixteen books including Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches; Cannibals
and Kings; American Now; and Good to Eat ---have been translated into over a
dozen languages. Dr. Harris lives in Gainesville, Florida and on Cranberry
Island, Maine.
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- In the Beginning
- The Birth of a Chimera
- The Rise and Fall of Dawson's Dawn Man
- Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
- The Tree of Life
- The Enigma of the Little Handy Man
- The Dawn of Technology
- Tools for What?
- Meat
- African Genesis Revisited
- Knapper, Butcher, Scavenger, Hunter
- The Enigma of H. Erectus
- Heat, Hair, Sweat, and Marathons
- The Brain Begins to Think
- Rudimentary Cultures
- Linguistic Takeoff
- Primitive Languages?
- Ape-Signs
- The Triumph of Sound
- On Being Neandertal
- Neandertal's Fate amd the Orgin of Our Kind
- Culture Overshadowing
- Ancestors
- How Old are the Races?
- How Our Skins Got Their Color
- Why Africa Lags
- Do the Races Differ in Intelligence?
- A Different Kind of Selection
- To Breathe
- To Drink
- To Eat
- Why We Eat Too Much
- Why We Feast
- Why We Get Fat
- Innate Tastes
- Acquired Tastes
- One for the Genes
- Sexual Pleasure
- Carnal Ingnorance
- And Now for Something Complete Different
- Why Women Have Perennially Enlarged Breasts
- Giving and Taking
- How Many Mates?
- Genes Against Incest?
- The Myth of the Great Taboo
- The Myth of the Procreative Imperative
- How Many Children?
- Reproductive Failure
- The Need to Be Loved
- Why Homosexuality?
- Male with Male
- Female with Female
- Sperm Versus Egg?
- Stolen Pleasures
- Are Men More Agressive Than Women?
- Tomboy Girls and Penis-at-Twelve Boys
- Mind, Math, and the Senses
- Sex, Hunting, and Deadly Force
- Female Warriors?
- War and Sexism
- Why War?
- Meats. Nuts, and Cannibals
- A Dissertation of Fatty Meat
- Game Wars?
- Hungry Papuans
- Where Women Rule the Roost
- Women Up, Women Down
- Hoes, Plows, and Computers
- Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men?
- The Hidden Cost of Machismo
- Was There Life Before Chiefs?
- How to be a Headman
- Coping with Freeloaders
- From Headman to Big Man
- The Birth of the Great Providers
- Why We Crave Prestige
- Why we Consume Conpicuously
- Why Yuppies?
- From Big Man to Chief
- Power: Was It Seized or Given?
- The Threshold of the State
- The First States
- Why We Became Religious
- The Evolution of the Spirit World
- The Basic Animistic Rituals
- Divine Exchanges
- Meat Offerings
- Human Sacrifice
- The Gods Who Would Not Eat People
- The Gods Who Ate People
- The Nonkilling Religions
- The Origin of Nonkilling Religions
- How the Nonkilling Religions Spread
- A Chinese Puzzle
- The Future of Belief and Disbelief
- Did History Repeat Itself?
- How the Second Earth Began
- The Evoulution of the Second Earth
- The Pharaohs of the Andes
- Why the First Earth Conquered the Second
- Cultural Discontents and the Knowing Mind
- Will Our Kind Survive?
- Notes and References
- Bibiography
- Index
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About the Author
One of the best known of contemporary anthropologists, Marvin Harris has
devoted his career to asking big questions about the human condition and
answering them authoritatively in clear, down-to-earth prose. In an age of
specialists who choose to communicate only within small circles, Harris
stands out as an unrepentant generalist interested in the global processes
that account for human origins and the evolution of human culture. His
sixteen previous books, which have been translated into fifteen languages,
include best-sellers such as Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches and Cannibals and
Kings as well as a widely used introductory college textbook, Culture,
People, Nature, now in its fifth edition. After receiving his doctorate, he
taught in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, served as
chairman there, and carried out research in Brazil, Mozambique, Ecuador,
India, and East Harlem. In 1981 he accepted the position of graduate
research professor of anthropology at the University of Florida in
Gainesville and is currently the chair of the General Anthropology Division
of the American Anthropological Association. He does most of his writing at a
summer cottage on Cranberry Island, Maine. The manuscript for OUR KIND, like
those of all his books, was handwritten, but he vows to switch to a word
processor for his next project because it is getting too hard to find decent
yellow pads.
-- From the Publisher
Promotional Material from the Publisher
Praise For OUR KIND By Marvin Harris
"Brilliant, provocative insights..."
Publishers Weekly
"...substantive, up-to-date essays--each one an easily digested bite."
New York Times Book Review
"Entirely accessible...written with the lively wit and know-it-all certainty
generally associated with a favorite high school science teacher."
Boollist
"....the Big Picture....Harris' provocative, personal views engage
throughout." Kirkus Reviews
"Harris does an entertaining job of informing, his book a kind of one man's
effort at science literacy-raising." The Boston Herald
"....at once thought-provoking and breezy enough to be popular."
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"OUR KIND is a feast of a book....entertaining and enlightening."
The Kansas City Star
"Light, breezy but amazingly informative....a refreshing and stimulating
piece of self-analysis." Pittsburg Press
"Our Kind is a fun read....just open it to any page and you'll become
absorbed." The Raleigh News and Observer
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