Content tagged with “anthropology”

“ I didn’t review this book right away, and in the meantime, I read The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry , by the same author. Because of this, it’s hard for me to separate the two books in my head – they’re about very similar themes. Maybe go read that review? A lot of it applies to this as well. ”

“ U.S. anthropologists will sometimes refer to ‘America/American’ by another word in order to maintain professional distance and objectivity from it. ”

“These three terms are disputed, and many consider them obsolete, and even offensive. They refer to what some people considered the three ‘base races’ in the world: In simple, cultural terms: Caucasian: White people Mongoloid: Asian people Negroid: Black people One of the original theories of race…”

“ There is a ‘tourist gaze,’ whereby history and cultural heritage is packaged for what the locals believe tourists want to see, and what tourists believe is ‘authentic.’ Local economies perpetuate this overemphasis and misrepresentation in exchange for tourist dollars. ”

“ A summary of the work of J.D. Unwin, who found a correlation between the sexual restraint of a culture and its productivity and ultimate survival. ”

“Tedious book. Seemed a bit scattered. The gist appears to be that the biggest reason nations fail is because of unfair, ‘extractive’ institutions, like dictatorships, that give people little incentive to work and are designed to enrich a few. The book goes on about this for 460+ pages, with example…”

“Here’s the basic premise – Images and writing are very different. They utilize different parts of the brain. Images are feminine, writing is masculine. Images are perceived all at once, holistically – we step back and take in a visual scene, in aggregate. Writing, on the other hand, is sequential –…”

“I read this book for the pure titillation level, because I’m fascinated by high society in general and New York culture in particular. And the book delivered on that level – there are some horrifying anecdotes where of a woman trying to fit into Upper East Side mommies. Women who use Birkin bags as…”