Building a new biocultural synthesis [electronic resource] : political-economic perspectives on human biology / edited by Alan H. Goodman and Thomas L. Leatherman.

Cover image for Building a new biocultural synthesis [electronic resource] : political-economic perspectives on human biology / edited by Alan H. Goodman and Thomas L. Leatherman.

ISBN:

9780472022700

Title:

Building a new biocultural synthesis [electronic resource] : political-economic perspectives on human biology / edited by Alan H. Goodman and Thomas L. Leatherman.

Author:

Goodman, Alan H.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxi, 486 pages) : illustrations.

Series:

Linking levels of analysis

Contents:

Traversing the chasm between biology and culture : an introduction -- The evolution of human adaptability paradigms : toward a biology of poverty -- Political economy and social fields -- The development of critical medical anthropology : implications for biological anthropology -- Linking political economy and human biology : lessons from North American archaeology -- The biological consequences of inequality in antiquity -- Owning the sins of the past : historical trends, missed opportunities, and new directions in the study of human remains -- Nature, nurture, and the determinants of infant mortality : a case study from Massachusetts, 1830-1920 -- Unequal in death as in life : a sociopolitical analysis of the 1813 Mexico City typhus epidemic -- Illness, social relations, and household production and reproduction in the Andes of southern Peru -- On the (un)natural history of the Tupí-Mondé Indians : bioanthropology and change in the Brazilian Amazon -- The political ecology of population increase and malnutrition in southern Honduras -- The biocultural impact of tourism on Mayan communities -- Poverty and nutrition in eastern Kentucky : the political economy of childhood growth -- Race, racism, and anthropology -- Beyond European enlightenment : toward a critical and humanistic human biology -- Latin American social medicine and the politics of theory -- Nature, political ecology, and social practice : toward an academic and political agenda -- What could be : biocultural anthropology for the next generation.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Subject Term:

Physical anthropology.

Social history.

Human remains (Archaeology)

Medical anthropology.

Anthropology, Physical.

Politics.

Socioeconomic Factors.

Sociology, Medical.

Added Author:

Goodman, Alan H.

Leatherman, Thomas L.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

1998

Publication Information:

Ann Arbor :

University of Michigan Press,

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
306 21	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Anthropology, with its dual emphasis on biology and culture, is--or should be--the discipline most suited to the study of the complex interactions between these aspects of our lives. Unfortunately, since the early decades of this century, biological and cultural anthropology have grown distinct, and a holistic vision of anthropology has suffered.
This book brings culture and biology back together in new and refreshing ways. Directly addressing earlier criticisms of biological anthropology, Building a New Biocultural Synthesis concerns how culture and political economy affect human biology--e.g., people's nutritional status, the spread of disease, exposure to pollution--and how biological consequences might then have further effects on cultural, social, and economic systems.
Contributors to the volume offer case studies on health, nutrition, and violence among prehistoric and historical peoples in the Americas; theoretical chapters on nonracial approaches to human variation and the development of critical, humanistic and political ecological approaches in biocultural anthropology; and explorations of biological conditions in contemporary societies in relationship to global changes.
Building a New Biocultural Synthesis will sharpen and enrich the relevance of anthropology for understanding a wide variety of struggles to cope with and combat persistent human suffering. It should appeal to all anthropologists and be of interest to sister disciplines such as nutrition and sociology.
Alan H. Goodman is Professor of Anthropology, Hampshire College. Thomas L. Leatherman is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of South Carolina.

Author Notes

Alan H. Goodman is Professor of Anthropology, Hampshire College.
Thomas L. Leatherman is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of South Carolina.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

This collection of 19 papers resulted (directly or indirectly) from a 1992 conference. The purpose of the conference and volume was to bring a more informed sense of politics and economy to human biology and ecology. Most authors focus on the effects of poverty on health. Poverty leads to malnutrition and disease; these, by disabling the poor, lead to more poverty. Poverty is typically maintained by particular political and economic institutions. Thus, the human biologist finds it expedient to observe these; the social scientist, in turn, should pay more attention to malnutrition and illness. This is not a new or unusual idea, though it has been somewhat lost in the recent separation of biological and cultural anthropology. Like most such conference volumes, this book has several programmatic and general articles and a number of more focused studies. Readers will probably be most interested in the latter, which describe a range of ancient and modern communities in the Western hemisphere. Among the many better ones are studies of pre-Columbian chiefdoms along the Mississippi; infant mortality in Massachusetts in the bad old days; and typhus in Mexico City in 1813. Primarily of interest to specialists in cultural and political ecology, medical ecology, and human biology; also to historians of the New World. E. N. Anderson University of California, Riverside