HUMANITY: AN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Eleventh Edition, offers a solid framework centered on globalization and culture change. The text's engaging narrative provides new ways of looking at many of the challenges facing the world in this century, as students examine ethnic conflicts, globalization of culture and language, recent debates about gay marriage, increasing inequalities, population growth, hunger, and the survival of indigenous cultures. Throughout this highly acclaimed work, Peoples and Bailey explore the diversity of humanity and clearly demonstrate why an appreciation and tolerance of cultural differences is critical today.
In Chapter 3, recent material appears about the use of language to acquire and enhance power, using examples from political speech used in the 2016 presidential campaigns in the United States. This chapter also includes a section titles Language and Worldview and contains new and provocative arguments about how verb forms might affect savings rates in countries with similar socioeconomic conditions.
The Eleventh Edition continues to offer one of the sharpest focuses on globalization of any introduction to cultural anthropology text, with an integration of the globalization theme throughout the chapters.
Chapter 7 has been updated to include information about the 2015 Paris Accords on climate change. Information in Chapter 8 on the origin of credit cards was updated to enhance student interest and understand in relation to reciprocity, redistribution and market exchange forms.
In Chapter 9 the section on “Same Sex Marriage and the Culture Wars” was revised to include recent court decisions and reactions to them.
Chapter 13 was updated to include the contrasting ideas of political parties, and updates on the numerical data on the distribution of income and wealth in the United States, including data on how the economic inequalities have increased since 1980. Globalization data on China was also updated.
In Chapter 15 there is an entirely new section titled “Will Religion Disappear?” The section “Varieties of Religious Organization” now discusses the complexities of attempting to classify the great variety of humanity’s religions into only a few forms or categories.
Chapter 17 (world problems and the practice of anthropology), continues to discuss anthropological insights on health and health care, population growth, and world hunger. The seemingly unending struggles of people like the San, Dongria Kondha, and Kayapo to protect their lands are updated.
Chapter-opening learning objectives are linked to chapter summaries, guiding students' reading and reinforcing their learning.
Concept review boxes provide a concise summation of key concepts from a chapter in a tabular format.