Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers an integrated approach that responds to these questions: is that culture a single coherent whole or only a collection of disparate parts? Culture is shared, but how totally? How is culture learned? How is it maintained over time, and how does it change? The book organizes an unfolding argument from basic principles. It aims to give the reader not simply the resulting understanding of culture, but also to elucidate the combination of conditions, constraints, and logic that produce and shape culture. The book aims to couch the argument in everyday language and to illustrate its parts with simple everyday examples. The book is about how the components, pieces, and issues of culture all go together; it does not offer any empirical contribution concerning the specific content of specific issues and subjects.