Library · Tag

Anthropology

An annotated collection of 3 books on anthropology, spanning 1934 to 2018. Featuring works by Ruth Benedict, Clifford Geertz, David Graeber — each with editorial commentary oriented to digital product practice.

Patterns of Culture

Ruth Benedict, 1934 · Houghton Mifflin

Benedict's 1934 classic of cultural anthropology, based on her and Franz Boas's fieldwork on three societies (Zuni, Dobu, Kwakiutl), argues that each culture is a coherent pattern that selects certain human capacities an…

The Interpretation of Cultures

Clifford Geertz, 1973 · Basic Books

Geertz's essay collection that introduced "thick description" — the idea that understanding a culture requires not just recording what people do but interpreting what their actions mean to them in context. The Balinese c…

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

David Graeber, 2018 · Simon & Schuster

Graeber's thesis: a growing proportion of jobs in advanced economies are perceived as meaningless by the people who hold them, and this is not a bug in capitalism but a structural feature — the system produces unnecessar…