Anthropology and Contemporary Human Problems

Resource depletion, global warming, escalating energy costs, poverty, conflict. As human life becomes increasingly complicated, cultural anthropologist John H. Bodley presents a work that closes in on the social and environmental problems of our time and explores the deleterious global reaches of unsustainable growth in production and consumption. Anthropology and Contemporary Human Problems addresses the contemporary reader interested in social science and history, environmental studies, globalization, and the political economy, revealing the development of humanity and our global prospectus for the future.

New to the fifth edition: A new contrast is drawn between the scale and power perspective and the view offered in Jared Diamond's popular books, Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse. An important new focus is offered on the causes of global warming from a culture scale and social power perspective, linking it to poverty and misdirected growth. New material has been added on environmental and resource consequences of China's and India's expanding economies. New material has been added on sustainable development, energy, oil depletion, food, and population, including helpful new concepts and methods such as the ecological footprint, and various development indices, including the UN's new Millennium Goals. Chapter 8 has been thoroughly revised to include a discussion of several new global futurist models developed for major corporations, government agencies, the UN, and NGOs. Updated facts and figures are included throughout.

About the Author:
John H. Bodley is a cultural anthropologist, Regents Professor at Washington State University