An illuminating work of religious and cultural anthropology, Talking to the Enemy traces terrorism's root causes in human evolution and history, touching on the nature of faith, the origins of society, the limits of reason, and the power of moral values. Through rigorous fieldwork and nuanced invest[...]
This ambitious, interdisciplinary book seeks to explain the origins of religion using our knowledge of the evolution of cognition. A cognitive anthropologist and psychologist, Scott Atran argues that religion is a by-product of human evolution just as the cognitive intervention, cultural selection, [...]
Scott Atran has spent years talking to terrorists - from Gaza and Afghanistan, to Indonesia and Europe. Here he argues persuasively that to understand religious violence we need to consider terrorists' close relationships, with family and friends, as much as the causes they espouse. He delivers a fa[...]
An analysis of the cognitive consequences of diminished contact with nature examines the relationship between how people think about the natural world and how they act on it, and how these are affected by cultural differences.[...]
Vart är vi på väg i det globala politiska landskapet? Kommer gamla ideologier att tyna bort eller återupplivas. Om det förra är fallet, hur kommer det nya ideologiska landskapet att se ut och hur kommer det att påverka det politiska livets villkor? Ideologiernas död har förutspåtts ett fle[...]