Presenting seven examples from Africa, Southeast Asia, Melanesia and Oceania, this study attempts to further the anthropological understanding of dance's social significance and critical relevance by exploring it as a reflection of social forces.

This monograph is a review of the present state of knowledge of the relationships and consequences of over 25 centuries of interactions between the Amerindian and Asean Circum-Pacific regions. A fascinating, special case of previous work by two Asianists on similar themes of the Euro-Asian Continental land mass, providing the theoretical framework within which the complexities of cultural cross-pattern are studied.The subjects dicussed individually begin with the elements of recording and writing, continuing through the arts, religion, folklore and an eventual examination of the natural sciences and technology. There is also a discussion in this context of evidence from and the relevance of ethno-botany, ethno-zoology and ethno-helminthology.The underlying thesis of this volume is the relative independence and powerfully original development and evolution of Amerindian cultures and societies in Central and South America.

This book argues that in the South Pacific Islands, land formerly held by community groups under traditional forms of tenure is now often being privatised. The authors present case studies from four countries, and examine parallels from other regions experiencing comparable socio-economic forces.

"Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history," thus ended Darwin's Origin of Species. For many years, the book provoked a flood of argument, but yielded little evidence. In the first century after the book's publication, virtually no one tested Darwin's theory against the evidence of human history. Now that tide has changed. Laura Betzig challenges the proposition that the evolved end of human life is its reproduction by presenting the literature on conflict resolution from over a hundred societies. The research results presented in Despotism and Differential Reproduction convincingly uphold Darwin's prophecy. A basic premise behind research has always been that understanding the way things are should contribute to our ability to change them to the way we would like them to be. This idea forms the basis for Betzig's research--she sets out to explain how things really are by leading the reader through the historical and natural conditions that have promoted despotism in the hopes that this might eventually eradicate it. She begins with the idea that reproduction is the end of human life, and that all forms of power and strength are exploited in reaching this end. In this way, Betzig shows with startling clarity how power corrupts and how despotic governments continue to exist in the world today. Engaging--even at times railing against--existing literature on human and social evolution, such as that of Rousseau and Marx, Betzig asserts herself as a formidable and undeniable voice in this debate. Since Darwin's monumental work, more has been said about why questions regarding how human history has been shaped by natural history should not even be asked, than has been said in an effort to answer them. This work puts a stop to that by testing the Darwinian hypothesis and finding that he was right: light has in fact been shed on human political and reproductive history. Controversial and creative, this book makes no apologies for its bold messages and interdisciplinary boundary blending and addresses a topic of continuing interest and importance.

Developed from papers presented at the first European Colloquium on Pacific Studies this volume addresses the dynamics of contemporary Oceanic religions. In particular, the contributors investigate how indigenous populations have come to terms with the enormous impact of colonization and missionization while maintaining a distinct cultural and religious identity.

The economic significance of Aboriginal culture for the British colonizers of Australia is rarely addressed and, until now, has not been closely studied by an economic historian. This imaginative book presents a concept of a pre-European Aboriginal economy. It shows how an Aboriginal presence over millennia shaped the local environment and responded to it, so that the Aboriginal economy developed into an ordered system of decision-making able to satisfy the wants of the people. The book analyzes the processes which allowed economic control of a country to pass, after more than 60,000 years in Aboriginal hands, into European hands within 60 years of settlement. Professor Butlin's presentation of the contrast between one of the world's most ancient economies and one of its youngest is both illuminating and exciting.

An Adjustment Movement in Arnhem Land was published in 1962. An earlier and abbreviated form of the book had been recognised by the award of the Royal Anthropological Institute Wellcome Medal for 1958. But in spite of this distinguished recognition, anthropology in Australia seemed not to know what to make of it. It had no obvious predecessors, nor was it written in a genre appropriate to the anthropological issues of the day. It was short - only 103 pages - and its internal organization was decidedly odd, with descriptions of individual Aboriginal people, their roles and relationships, an elaborate attempt to decode the designs on the sacred objects which form the centre of the account, forewords and appendices, and some black and white photographic plates. Finally, the anthropologist himself is, if not at centre stage, at least a frequent and sometimes significant presence in the text. In many respects it seems more like a postmodern work, filled with fragments and reflexivity, than the formalized ethnographies which were canonical at the time. It is concerned with Aboriginal life in Northeast Arnhem Land in the encounter with "change", most particularly with concepts, beliefs and ideas arising from the penetration of mission Christianity. -- Preface, p. 2.