Perspectives in Anthropology

Internet-based magazine

Seeing Culture Everywhere: A Book Review by Keith Hart

The authors of this well-written book tell how they were pushed by their editor into writing for a general audience. They have succeeded without sacrificing analytical rigor. They are a German freelance anthropologist, journalist and entrepreneur and a professor of anthropological history at the University of Amsterdam. They seek to describe and explain the ubiquity […]

Pandemics: Agents of Global Change – Part 2

The Economic and Commercial Impact of Pandemics: By now, the COVID-19 influenza outbreak has reached practically all parts of the globe. In the context of discussing the pandemic, it serves no purpose to focus on the fact that scientists, medical professionals, public health experts and a handful of concerned economic institutions and businessmen have been […]

New Preface to Globalization from Below: The World’s Other Economy by Keith Hart

IV. The informal economy has taken over the World The idea of an informal economy was born in the 1970s when the post-war era of developmental states was drawing to a close. It seems, four decades later, that the economy has now escaped from all attempts to make it publicly accountable. What are the forms […]

The Subjugation of Liberal Democracy

Are we witnessing in our lifetime the slow destruction of liberal democracy? Have we exhausted the limits of a political system that has served nations for more than a century? These are questions many of us probably never thought we would face. But here we are faced with the hard to imagine reality that the […]

The Collapse of Societies

By now, the entire world is aware of the historic and unprecedented events occurring in the United States. It seems trite to characterize these events as an aberration that will soon pass over. Even more striking, it seems these events will have far-reaching, long-term, damaging effects on not only the Constitution of the United States […]

Agriculture in Human Evolution – by Keith Hart

In his Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men (1754) Jean-Jacques Rousseau was concerned, not with individual variations in natural endowments, but with the artificial inequalities of wealth, honour and the capacity to command obedience that he derived from social convention. In order to construct a model of human equality, he imagined […]

The Political Economy of Food in an Unequal World-by Keith Hart

Food in a New Economic Order What is ‘new’ about neo-liberalism? It is a world economic order based on selective freedom, on the freedom of money to move where it will (but not people, machines, products or information) and on the freedom of strong states to impose their will on the weak. This describes our […]

Filtered Realities

In order to proceed, we must first acknowledge the more than three decades of work by a man who has been sounding the alarm concerning the dangers of media organizations manipulating information for the purpose of influencing opinions and behaviors. His name is Noam Chomsky and his two ground-breaking books, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy […]

The Mueller Report: Highlights

The Mueller Report is probably one of the most extensive legal investigations in the history of the United States. Certainly, the circumstances necessitating it are historic and unprecedented in American political documentary. Even more striking, the idea that someone elected to the office of the President of the United States would so openly abuse power […]

The Horror of War – Part 1

With all the violence in the world and the ever growing movement of mankind toward more violence, it appears there is always a war somewhere in the world. It occurred to me that since ancient times politicians always create wars, generals manage wars, and soldiers fight them. Now, setting aside the economic advantages of […]

The Virus of Violence

In the study of epidemiology, one has an opportunity to learn about communicable and non-communicable diseases. This curriculum is usually pursued on the graduate level and involves a combination of courses that investigate hard sciences dealing with pathogens, hosts, environments, and incubation. Also, it includes study in the soft sciences such as human evolution, human […]

The Real Race Problem – Part 2

On the eve of the one-hundred and eighth anniversary of W.E.B. Du Bois’ newspaper The Crisis, we are presenting, in its entirety, a lecture from the distinguished anthropologist, mentor and head of the Anthropology Department at Columbia University for many years – Dr. Franz Boas on the subject of the “race” problem. THE REAL RACE […]

The Real Race Problem – Part 1

On the eve of the one-hundred and eighth anniversary of W.E.B. Du Bois’ newspaper The Crisis, we are presenting, in its entirety, a lecture from the distinguished anthropologist, mentor and head of the Anthropology Department at Columbia University for many years – Dr. Franz Boas on the subject of the “race” problem. THE REAL […]

The Culture of Corruption

Many of us know that political corruption is not new to the world. It is an unsavory, human practice with a history that extends far back into ancient times, countries, and rulers. Unlike modern times, there were no checks and balances of power then and rulers were free to rule however they saw fit. During […]

Perennial Narratives in Anthropology

Since the 1960s, there has not been any new innovative advances in the field of anthropology. Although some good work has been done, most of it has been concerned with fleshing out the subtler nuances of what was discovered during that time. The 1960s and 1970s brought to anthropology issues of critical theory and awareness […]

World’s Most Vital Resource

It is not necessary to explain the process by which algae through millions of years of geological time and chemical reactions become fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal. It is important to explain, however, why these fossil fuels have become the most vital resources in the world today. Our modern-day lives depend […]

The War Against Privacy

In the May-June 1993 issue of Wired Magazine, an article on a group of mathematicians advocating a radical, libertarian, cryptographic philosophy appeared on the front cover. The group of scientists called themselves the “Cypherpunks.” By 1996, their political-scientific philosophy had developed into a populace movement against government intrusions into the private lives of individuals. […]

Indispensability of Medical Anthropology

Medical anthropology, although considered a subcategory in anthropology, has been making contributions to medicine and public health since the development of anthropology itself. The fact that anthropology, as a multi-disciplinary, intrinsic, discipline has contributed valuable information and techniques to several other disciplines justifies its essential importance. Although its early history is diverse, there exist three […]

Lecture series

Perspectives in Anthropology welcomes you to explore our new Lecture Series where you can discover a wide range of topics, each with a unique perspective and interpretation. We hope that these lectures will reflect the values of good anthropological research and inspire your own critical thinking and imagination. If you can’t view the lectures here […]

Documentary Series

Some of you may be interested in knowing that Perspectives in Anthropology will be featuring a series of online anthropology documentaries. Many of these documentaries are available for viewing online for free from a variety of different websites. Not only will we feature some of the films we think are interesting but we will also […]