Suggestions for Social Science Books (specifically anthropology)

Over the weekend, I found Jared Diamond’s “The 3rd Chimpanzee” at a local Goodwill store for $1.99 and since I loved “Guns, Germs, and Steel”, I snatched it up. After reading most of it over the past two days, I’ve become even more of a fan of his work as his work is engrossing but not so technical that I, as a layman, can’t understand it. As far as I know, these are his only two books though.

Can anyone give some suggestions on books and authors similar to Diamond and his work?

In the realm of anthropology for the layman, try the following from Marvin Harris:

Our Kind : Who We Are, Where We Came From, Where We Are Going

Cows, Pigs, Wars & Witches: The Riddles of Culture

Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures

Patterns of Culture by Ruth Benedict- basically three studies of more or less ‘primitive’ cultures (isolated in one way or another from modern world society). Incredibly readable, it bowled me over when I read it a few years ago.

“Sociological Insight” by Randall Collins. The chapter on crime is worth the price of the book.

Brian Fagan is probably the leading author of popular books on anthropology and archaeology still working today.

Amazon won’t let you link to a search page, so here are some of his titles:

Floods, Famines, and Emperors : El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations

The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization

The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300-1850

In the Beginning: An Introduction to Archaeology (10th Edition)

Before California: An Archaeologist Looks at Our Earliest Inhabitants

People of the Earth: An Introduction to World Prehistory with CD (10th Edition)

From Black Land to Fifth Sun: The Science of Sacred Sites

The Seventy Great Mysteries of the Ancient World: Unlocking the Secrets of Past Civilizations

TIME DETECTIVES: How Archaeologist Use Technology to Recapture the Past

and about a zillion others.

I took Intro to Archaeology (or somesuch) from Brian Fagan at UCSB a quarter of a century (+) ago. /OT

I recommend “Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language” by Robin Dunbar.