Description: Individuals are active decision makers, continually involved in creating and using their culture. Faced with new problems and new situations in their environment, people will often attempt to find solutions that go beyond traditional customs and cultural prescriptions. This is how culture is created and re-created, as these behavioral variations are passed between different societies and through different generations. This is the underlying premise of cultural anthropology, which studies and traces the roots and trends of culture. In this book, the authors hope to convey some of the excitement that is part of the ongoing, developing science of anthropology. The objective of this book is to introduce cultural anthropology to readers with little background in the subject and to present the material in a unified framework rather than as an encyclopedia of anthropological concepts and findings. This book features a unifying theme of human ecology, culture, and politics, and includes case studies in each chapter which bring the material to life. It integrates coverage of gender issues, the impact of colonialism, globalization, and cultural diversity throughout the book. Cultural anthropologists, cultural ecologists, and anyone wishing to learn about the basics of cultural anthropology.

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