ABSTRACT

This lively text offers a unique, holistic approach to human diversity for undergraduate courses in fields including anthropology, medicine, human ecology, and general education. Leading medical anthropologist Elisa Sobo rises to the challenge of truly integrating biology and culture. Her inviting writing style and fascinating examples make important new ideas from complexity theory and epigenetics accessible to undergraduates from all disciplines, regardless of academic background. Students learn to conceptualize human biology and culture concurrently—as an adaptive biocultural capacity that has helped to produce the rich range of human diversity seen today. With clearly structured topics, an extensive glossary and suggestions for further reading, this text makes a complex, interdisciplinary topic a joy to teach.

part |4 pages

Part I A Systems View of Human Adaptation

chapter 1|14 pages

Anthropology and Complexity

chapter 2|18 pages

Genetic Adaptation

chapter 4|18 pages

Emergence of Culture and People Like Us

part |4 pages

Part II Socio-political and Economic Factors

chapter 6|26 pages

Foraging: A Human Baseline

chapter 8|20 pages

Epidemics: Human Settlement and Sociality

part |4 pages

Part III Meaningful Practices

chapter 12|20 pages

Variation in Body Ideals and Outcomes

chapter 13|22 pages

Kinship: So Relative