Berg Publishers

Essays on cultural transmission.

Bloch (anthropology, London School of Economics) presents a selection of unpublished work and articles previously published, often in somewhat inaccessible places. The questions raised in the chapters are the types initiated by reflections on how to interpret behaviors observed during fieldwork. Collectively, the essays characterize the author's approach to the relation between anthropology and cognitive science, using cognitive science to criticize anthropological assumptions about religion, kinship, belief, ritual, symbolism, art, and other key topics. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Havana; the making of Cuban culture.

In his cultural history of the capital city of Cuba, Kapcia (U. of Nottingham, UK) explores the ways in which Havana's different elite/vanguard cultural communities have related to each other and to outsiders in the context of a search for a national cultural identity. Proceeding chronologically from the 1550s to the 1990s, but focusing on the 20th century, he discusses how Bohemia, Granma, the Casas de la Cultura, and other cultural productions reflected and influenced cultural manifestations and attitudes of Havana. Distributed in the US by Palgrave Macmillan. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

New York sights; visualizing old and new New York.

Tallack (American studies, U. of Nottingham, UK) provides a study of the transformation of "old" New York (about 1880-1900) into "new" New York (from 1895 to the mid 1910s), through its visual culture — in paintings, photographs, and other illustrations of buildings, mass transit, scenes of city life, and the Manhattan skyline. He analyzes the works of artists such as Alfred Stieglitz, Jacob Riis, Max Weber, Georgia O'Keeffe, John Sloan, Childe Hassam, John Marin, and George Bellows. Included is a list of related films. Distributed in the US by Palgrave Macmillan. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)