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Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality; With a New Preface
Paul Barber · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorDead Men Do Tell Tales: Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist
William R. Maples · 292 pages
William Maples is blessed with an eerie but powerful gift. From a skeleton, a skull, a mere fragment of burnt thighbone, he can deduce the age, gender and ethnicity of a corpse, and the manner in which the victim was dispatched; his gift has sealed the doom of many a killer. His skill is to read the tales of death written on the bones of the dead, and in this fascinating book he revisits his stran
Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America
Theodora Kroeber · 255 pages
Tells the story of Ishi, the last member of the lost tribe of Yana, who wandered out of the hills on August 29, 1911 and was taken in by anthropologists at the University of California where he spent the last years of his life.
Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
Nicholas Wade · 313 pages
Nicholas Wade's articles are a major reason why the science section has become the most popular, nationwide, in the New York Times. In his groundbreaking Before the Dawn, Wade reveals humanity's origins as never before—a journey made possible only recently by genetic science, whose incredible findings have answered such questions as: What was the first human language like? How large were the first
The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal
Jared Diamond · 407 pages
Explores the question of what in the less than two percent of genes has made humans different from apes.
Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey
Isabel Fonseca · 322 pages
After the revolutions of 1989, the author lived and traveled with the Gypsies of Bulgaria, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the former Yugoslavia, Romainia, and Albania -- listening to their stories and recording their attempts to become something more than despised outsiders. In this book, alongside unforgettable portraits of individuals -- the poet, the politician, the child prostitute-
Lives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble
Marilyn Johnson · 274 pages
Examines "the lives of contemporary archaeologists as they sweat under the sun for clues to the puzzle of our past. Johnson digs and drinks alongside archaeologists, chases them through the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and even Machu Picchu, and excavates their lives. Her subjects share stories we rarely read in history books, about slaves and Ice Age hunters, ordinary soldiers of the American Re
Cannibals and Kings: Origins of Cultures
Marvin Harris · 351 pages
¿Por qué tantas culturas han permitido el asesinato de las niñas recién nacidas? ¿Por qué los hombres se creen superiores a las mujeres? Marvin Harris responde a estas y muchas otras preguntas demostrando que caníbales y reyes, esclavos y ciudadanos, madres e hijas, padres e hijos -las culturas a que todos ellos pertenecen- han de asumir en cada caso sus pautas culturales dentro de un proceso glob
Any Mummers ’Lowed In? : Christmas Mummering Traditions in Newfoundland and Labrador
Dale Jarvis · 181 pages
Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found
Frances Larson · 336 pages
A serious and seriously entertaining exploration of the dark and varied obsessions that the “civilized West” has had with decapitated heads and skulls. The human head is exceptional. It accommodates four of our five senses, encases the brain, and boasts the most expressive set of muscles in the body. It is our most distinctive attribute and connects our inner selves to the outer world. Yet ther
The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia
James C. Scott · 442 pages
Debt: The First 5,000 Years
David Graeber · 542 pages
The author shows that before there was money, there was debt. For 5,000 years humans have lived in societies divided into debtors and creditors. For 5,000 years debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates, laws and religions. The words “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption” come from ancient debates about debt. These terms and the ideas of debt shape our most basic ideas of r
The Myth of the Eternal Return or Cosmos and History
Mircea Eliade · 195 pages
The Statues that Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island
Terry Hunt, Carl Lipo · 237 pages
The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island's barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have bui
Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge
Terence McKenna · 323 pages
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari · 456 pages
From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What hap
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Charles C. Mann · 660 pages
A groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492. Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus's landing had crossed the Bering Strait twelve thousand years ago; existed mainly in small, nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land
The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead
J. Gordon Melton · 919 pages
Explores the myth, lore, and representation in popular culture of vampires and vampire legends from around the globe.
Cro-Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans
Brian M. Fagan · 295 pages
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
David W. Anthony · 568 pages
In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale
Amitav Ghosh · 393 pages
Overview: Once upon a time an Indian writer named Amitav Ghosh set out to find an Indian slave, name unknown, who some seven hundred years before had traveled to the Middle East. The journey took him to a small village in Egypt, where medieval customs coexist with twentieth-century desires and discontents. But even as Ghosh sought to re-create the life of his Indian predecessor, he found himself i
The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved
Peter Vilhelm Glob · 200 pages
From archaeological and scientific knowledge and the evidence of classical writers, a picture is drawn of the lives of Danish Iron-Age people found preserved in peat bogs.