Cultural Anthropology - The Human Challenge (with CD-ROM and InfoTrac) Description:

Cultural Anthropology : The Human Challenge (with CD-ROM and InfoTrac) review:
4 stars (I don't know why the other reviews are so critical) - I bought this because it is needed for my Cultural Anthropology class and it's a pretty smooth read. It has a definate liberal bias but no more than any other college book I've had to buy, if anything it's a bit less liberal bias than some of the books I've had to suffer through.



It's topics are very interesting and in most places the authors at least try to be neutral. The really good part of the book is not the part the instructors normally assign but the stuff in the yellow boxes which are almost like reading stories.




5 stars (A Good Introductory Text) - This is one of the better anthropology texts available today. It is very comprehensive, well-organized, and takes a very broad view of the human condition. The problem with textbooks is that they sometimes summarize issues as if they were settled questions, when, in reality, many of the problems involved are the subjects of complex debate. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since the majority of undergraduate students are not interested in primary sources that are very difficult to read and take a lot of work to understand. As an instructor I found the book to be very good as a basic resource that allowed me to teach my perspective of the discipline to students using supplementary materials and lectures. The major drawback is that it is so expensive, but not more so than other textbooks out there.



Here is what one of my very good students said about the book, "I found it to be well-organized, thorough, and easy to understand. I have never taken a class in this subject before, so I have nothing to compare it to, but as far as I can tell it is a useful text. I had one other cultural anthropology class this term and I was able to use the textbook from your class as a reference from time to time. I chose anthropology as my minor, and so for further reference purposes I have kept the text from your class."



Students who have strong political views (right or left) will say this book is "biased" since it does not claim that Western civilization, Christianity, or American culture are superior or inferior to other cultures. The book, for example, teaches that ethnocentrism, racism, economic exploitation, colonialism, and polluting the environment are generally not good things-- but these evils are not new to the world or authored by any one particular culture. Those who don't like the idea of multiculturalism will not like the book.






1 stars (I agree with the previous reviews...) - This text was required reading for my anthropology course and although I was looking forward to learning about the subject matter, I felt that Haviland wrote in a way that made it much less enjoyable than it should have been. Often repetitive, always with his own biased version and even his terminology (using such phrases as *something like* when using descriptives)were not what I expected from someone of his caliber. To make matters worse, the *Original Study* segments which were some of the most interesting parts of the book were printed on a green background with the print lightened so that it was barely readable...what were the publishers thinking? I was greatly disappointed.