The essays contained in this volume explore the historical trajectories along which the Mediterranean has been conceptualized as a cultural, religious and economical resource and how these various aspects are intertwined. While staying clear of a merely “imagological” or “representational” point of view, the authors consider the interplay between culturally shaped attributions (for example the longstanding desire for a Mediterranean “Otherness” as expressed in German literature), their testing in empirical encounters, and the effect these encounters produce on both sides. Although focused particularly on 19th and 20th century culture, this... Read more →

This book is a theoretical essay that lays foundations on which to build an anthropology directly focusing on human units. In the first chapter, the author attempts to show that the evolutionary specificity of humans constitutes an argument in favour of this perspective. The consciousness of existing in time and nuanced modalities of presence call for a detailed observation of humans. The second chapter is a critique of the abundant use of the notion of relations in social anthropology. This critique is necessary because of the extent to which the... Read more →

This book is one of the most important works of modern anthropology. Starting from his studies of the Melanesian society on the Trobriand Islands of New Guinea, Malinowski describes and examines the ways in which Trobriand Islanders structure and maintain the social and economic order of their tribe. “The true problem”, Malinowski says, “is not to study how human life submits to rules; the real problem is how the rules become adapted to life.” Crime and Custom in Savage Society is a necessary book to understand the articulate relationship between... Read more →

In many respects, this book is considered to be the best guide ever written on Homeric religion.