Agriculture is the most fundamental of all human activities. Today, those who till the soil or tend livestock feed a world population of approximately 6.5 billion. Fifty years ago, the planet could not have sustained such a large population, and according to present projections, farmers will have to feed nine billion people by 2050. The greatest agricultural revolution in history has occurred in the last fifty years, with farmers in the United States leading the way. America's declining number of farms, however, comes as a surprise to many and may have dramatic implications. Paul K. Conkin's A Revolution Down on the Farm: The Transformation of American Agriculture since 1929 charts the profound changes in farming that have occurred during his lifetime. Conkin's personal experience growing up on a small Tennessee farm complements compelling statistical data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Using economic and historical analysis, Conkin assesses the skills, new technologies, and government policies that helped transform American farming. He clarifies the present status of a subsidized, large-scale, mechanized, and chemically supported agriculture, evaluates its environmental and human costs, and surveys alternatives to a troubled, widely challenged system.

Pathbreaking and controversial, Darwin and International Relations offers the first comprehensive analysis of international affairs of state through the lens of evolutionary theory. Bradley A. Thayer provides a new method for investigating and explaining human and state behavior while generating insights into the origins of human and animal warfare, ethnic conflict, and the influence of disease on international relations. Using ethnological and statistical studies of warfare among tribal societies, Thayer argues that humans wage war for reasons predicted by evolutionary theory -- to gain and protect vital resources but also for the physically and emotionally stimulating effects of combat. Thayer demonstrates that an evolutionary understanding of disease will become a more important part of the study of international relations as new strains of diseases emerge and advances in genetics make biological warfare a more effective weapon for states and terrorists. He also explains the deep causes of ethnic conflict by illuminating how xenophobia and ethnocentrism evolved in humans. He notes that these behaviors once contributed to our ancestors' success in radically different environments, but they remain a part of us. Darwin and International Relations makes a major contribution to our understanding of human history and the future of international relations.

Many people wonder if an item stored in the attic or found at a tag sale could be a lost treasure. Joe Nickell's latest book, Real or Fake, offers a general introduction to the principles of authentication. Illustrating methods used by the pros and recognized by hit shows such as Antiques Roadshow, Nickell educates readers with the specific information necessary to begin forgery detection. Real or Fake focuses on three categories of potential treasures: documents, photographs, and other artifacts. Nickell critiques famous examples from each group to explain how his suggested techniques can be used to unmask fakes. The objects examined and tested for authenticity in the book include Jack the Ripper's diary, a draft of the Gettysburg Address, notes by Charles Dickens, a film of an alien autopsy, and debris from the Titanic. Nickell's extensive knowledge of the field is accessible to everyone -- from the general reader to the aspiring scientist -- who wants a better understanding of how the experts determine if a suspicious heirloom is real or fake.

The Kwara'ae and other peoples of Malaita island in Solomon Islands once dressed for special occasions in ornaments of glistening white shell and pearl shell, intricately carved turtle shell, strings and straps of shell money-beads and combs and bands patterned with colourful plant fibres. Today these ornaments are easier to find in museums around the world than in Malaita, but the recollections of Kwara'ae elders help us to understand how and why they were once made and worn. With contributions from the neighbouring Kwaio people who still make such things and examples from other parts of the island in museum and private collections, this book provides the first comprehensive account of Malaitan decorative and body arts. The book reviews the significance of body ornaments in Kwara'ae society, and the history of their rejection under the changing circumstances of colonial rule and Christian conversion, illustrated by historical photographs. It describes the materials, techniques and relationships by which ornaments were produced and exchanged, and then catalogues the great variety of ornaments worn throughout Malaita, fully illustrated in detailed drawings. A vanishing tradition is documented here for the interest of Solomon Islanders as well as all those who appreciate Pacific Islands' arts.

No matter what brand of feminism one may subscribe to, one thing is indisputable: the role of women in society during the past several decades has changed dramatically, and continues to change in a variety of ways. In You've Come a Long Way, Baby, Lilly J. Goren and an impressive group of contributors explore the remarkable advancement achieved by American women in a historically patriarchal social and political landscape, while examining where women stand today and contemplating the future challenges they face worldwide. As comprehensive as it is accessible, You've Come a Long Way, Baby appeals to anyone interested in confronting the struggles and celebrating the achievements of women in modern society.

This volume documents almost a decade of groundbreaking investigations within the Annapurna highlands of Nepal, including survey recording of fort and settlement sites. From the outset, the project's focus was the extraordinary ruins of Kohla Sombre – Kohla, The Three Villages – the ancestral settlement of the Tami-mai (Gurung) community, who hosted and instigated the fieldwork programme. Ultimately, only a single season's excavation was conducted before the project was cut short by the political insurgency within the country. It concluded with holding a great shaman's meeting in Pokhara in 2002, at which their historical oral texts were presented. Narrating the long migration of the Tamu-mai into the region and down from a distant north, this volume includes the full translation of one of these oral epics, the Lemako Roh Pye. The project represents a unique collaboration between archaeologists, anthropologists and a shaman. Including interviews with upland inhabitants, the volume encompasses the diverse voices of both its immediate participants and the local community. Fulsome in its presentation of the archaeological data and rich in ethnographic source-material, not only is this book crucial for Himalayan culture studies generally, but also relevant for anyone concerned with the construction and context of the past in the present, and the active forging of ethno-historical identities.

In Northern Ireland, Halloween is such a major celebration that it is often called the Irish Christmas. A day of family reunions, meals, and fun, Halloween brings people of all ages together with rhyming, storytelling, family fireworks, and community bonfires. Perhaps most important, it has become a day that transcends the social conflict found in this often troubled nation. Through the extensive use of interviews, The Hallowed Eve offers a fascinating look at the various customs, both past and present, that mark the celebration of the holiday. Looking through the lenses of gender, ethnicity, and religious affiliation, Jack Santino examines how the traditions exist in a nonthreatening, celebratory way to provide a model of how life could be in Northern Ireland. Halloween, concludes Santino, is a marriage of death and life, a joining of cultural opposites: indoor and outdoor, domesticity and wildness, male and female, old and young.Although current folk and popular traditions can be divisive, Halloween in Northern Ireland is universally considered to belong to everyone, regardless of their background or political leanings. The holiday is a dramatic example of how a community comes together one day a year, and these Northern Irish traditions capture the fundamental and everyday dimensions of life in Ulster.

Sectarian violence is one of the defining characteristics of the modern Ulster experience. Riots between Catholic and Protestant crowds occurred with depressing frequency throughout the nineteenth century, particularly within the constricted spaces of the province's burgeoning industrial capital, Belfast. From the Armagh Troubles in 1784 to the Belfast Riots of 1886, ritual confrontations led to regular outbreaks of sectarian conflict. This, in turn, helped keep Catholic/Protestant antagonism at the heart of political and cultural discussion in the north of Ireland.Rituals and Riots has at its core a subject frequently ignored -- the rioters themselves. Rather than focusing on political and religious leaders in a top-down model, Sean Farrell demonstrates how lower-class attitudes gave rise to violent clashes and dictated the responses of the elite. Farrell also penetrates the stereotypical images of the Irish Catholic as untrustworthy rebel and the Ulster Protestant as foreign oppressor in his discussion of the style and structure of nineteenth-century sectarian riots.Farrell analyzes the critical relationship between Catholic/ Protestant violence and the formation of modern Ulster's fractured, denominationally based political culture. Grassroots violence fostered and maintained the antagonism between Ulster Unionists and Irish Nationalists, which still divides contemporary politics. By focusing on the links between public ritual, sectarian riots, and politics, Farrell reinterprets nineteenth-century sectarianism, showing how lower-class Protestants and Catholics kept religious division at the center of public debate.

In the centre of the Mexican town of Mitla stands a run-down chapel on an overgrown pre-colonial pyramid. The chapel, housing three crosses, is the town's Calvario, the local representation of the hill on which Christ died. Although buses full of tourists on their way to Chiapas or on daytrips from Oaxaca City swarm the town every day almost none of them ever visit the Calvario. Instead they stick to the tourist zone to marvel at the famous mosaic friezes of the pre-colonial temples and shop for traditional souvenirs in the tourist market. If they would climb the steep steps to the chapel they would discover that despite appearances the building still sees extensive use as pilgrims from the wide Zapotec region visit it to bring offerings to and ask favours of the souls of their dearly departed. And as these offerings consist of elaborate arrangements of flowers, fruits, black candles, cacao beans and bundles of copal incense, such tourists might well start to wonder where the origins of these practices lie. It is this question that this thesis seeks to answer. To achieve this, current theories on cultural continuity, syncretism, the materiality of religion and ritual theory are combined with a study of archaeological, historical, iconographical and anthropological sources. In addition ethnographic fieldwork has been conducted to come to a better understanding of the offerings made in the Calvario today. In three parts, the thesis first addresses the history of Mitla as 'The Place of the Dead', then of the Calvario as a ritual location and finally of the offerings for the dead. Combining these three lines of research an interesting image is formed of the continuity of ancestor veneration in this busy tourist town.

Is hunting a bygone activity, out of touch with modern life; or is it valuable as an escape from it? Does hunting promote violence, not just to animals, but to humans as well? Is hunting, with its connection to the land and frontier experience, a heritage worth preserving? These questions form the foundations for discussion in Killing Tradition: Inside Hunting and Animal Rights Controversies. Simon J. Bronner sorts through the issues and goes behind the headlines to examine the basis of this hotly-charged subject. Using case studies as evidence, Bronner looks at a topic at the center of modern cultural debate.

Without question, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is the face of the civil rights revolution that reshaped the social and political landscape of the United States. Although many biographers and historians have examined Dr. King's activism, few have recognized the pivotal role that the people of Montgomery, Alabama, played in preparing him for leadership. King arrived in Montgomery as a virtually unknown doctoral student, but his activities there -- from organizing the Montgomery bus boycott to building relationships with local activists such as Rufus Lewis, E. D. Nixon, and Virginia Durr -- established him as the movement's most visible leader. Becoming King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Making of a National Leader illustrates how the people of Montgomery influenced King as much as he influenced them. In Montgomery, brave citizens, both black and white, spearheaded a protest movement that also launched King's public ministry. Author Troy Jackson demonstrates that spending his formative years in the city of Montgomery gave King the skills and experience to become a hero to generations of Americans.

Published by the Kentucky Historical Society & Distributed by the University Press of KentuckyThis is the second part of a two-volume study which covers the entire spectrum of the black experience in Kentucky from earliest exploration and settlement to 1980. Mandated and partially funded by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1978, this pathbreaking work is the most comprehensive consideration of the subject ever undertaken. It fills a long-recognized void in Kentucky history. George C. Wright describes the struggle of blacks in the twentieth century to achieve the promise of political, social, and economic equality. From the rising tide of racism and violence at the turn of the century to the civil rights movement and school integration in later decades, Wright describes the accomplishments, frustrations, and defeats suffered by the race, concluding that even in 1980 only a few blacks had actually achieved the long-sought toal of equality.

On small-town ballfields and county fairgrounds, the sideshow performers set up their tents and trailers in the shadow of the Ferris wheel. There they amazed us with daring feats such as fire eating and sword swallowing, intrigued us with exhibitions of human oddities and various "anatomical wonders," and yes, deceived us with illusions such as "Atasha the Gorilla Girl" and even outright fakes. These bizarre spectacles engaged the mind as well as the eye. Was the human blockhead act, in which the performer pounded a large nail or ice pick into his nostril, real or fake? Was the so-called alligator boy genuine or a "gaffed" oddity, painted with glue to produce a scaly simulation of reptilian skin? While the sideshows have now all but vanished from the American landscape, they leave a fascinating legacy of romance and mystery. Many of their secrets remain, only grudgingly given up, if at all, by aging showmen and "bally talkers." Joe Nickell -- once a carnival pitchman, then a magician, a private detective, and an investigative writer -- has pursued sideshow secrets for years. He has interviewed the showmen and performers, collected carnival memorabilia, researched the published literature, and even performed some classic sideshow feats, such as eating fire and lying on a bed of nails while a cinderblock was broken on his chest. Secrets of the Sideshows reveals the specific methods and tricks behind the performances, the showmen's tactics for recruiting performers and attracting crowds, and more. Nickell also examines the behind-the-scenes secrets of sideshow life, including details of the remarkable personal lives of those men and women billed as "freaks."

Americans are turning to popular culture to make sense of the American political system, a trend that explains the success of television shows such as The Simpsons, The West Wing, The Daily Show, and Chapelle's Show and films such as Election, Bulworth, and Wag the Dog. In Homer Simpson Goes to Washington: American Politics through Popular Culture, Joseph J. Foy has assembled a multidisciplinary team of scholars with backgrounds in political science, philosophy, law, cultural studies, and music. The essays tackle common assumptions about government and explain fundamental concepts such as civil rights, democracy, and ethics. Homer Simpson Goes to Washington will appeal to students of American politics and to readers with an interest in current events or popular culture.

In light of increasing evidence demonstrating the irreparable damage humans have inflicted on the planet, some have adopted a defeatist attitude toward environmental crises. Local Environmental Movements: A Comparative Study of the United States and Japan illustrates how local groups in both Japan and the United States are refusing to surrender the earth to a depleted and polluted fate. Drawing on a series of case studies, a team of scholars from across the world discusses the efforts by grassroots organizations to promote sustainable development that respects the need for environmental protection and cultural preservation.

This volume explores long-term behavioural patterns and processes of change in hunter-gatherer societies from the Lower Palaeolithic to the present. In doing so, this volume questions the disciplinary distinctions between fine and coarse-grain understandings of hunter-gatherer societies in anthropology and archaeology and challenges the perception that these distinctions are inherent to the two disciplines. The volume brings together studies that specifically address long-term behavioural patterns in hunter-gatherer societies past and present. Some of the contributors also combine historical/archival data and archaeological evidence with anthropological work on contemporary hunter-gatherers. All the papers are based on case-studies that, taken together, cover a wide geographical and chronological range. They represent current research dynamics in anthropology and archaeology across the globe (North and South America, Europe and Australia), and a variety of theoretical perspectives. The papers range chronologically from the Lower Palaeolithic to the present, and encompass groups at various levels of complexity of social organisation and degrees of sedentism, interaction with farmers and 'pristine-ness'.