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In this fresh, literate, and biting critique of current thinking on some of today's most important and controversial topics, leading anthropologists take on some of America's top pundits. This absorbing collection of essays subjects such popular commentators as Thomas Friedman, Samuel Huntington, Robert Kaplan, and Dinesh D'Souza to cold, hard scrutiny and finds that their writing is often misleadingly simplistic, culturally ill-informed, and politically dangerous. Mixing critical reflection with insights from their own fieldwork, twelve distinguished anthropologists respond by offering fresh perspectives on globalization, ethnic violence, social justice, and the biological roots of behavior. They take on such topics as the collapse of Yugoslavia, the consumer practices of the American poor, American foreign policy in the Balkans, and contemporary debates over race, welfare, and violence against women. In the clear, vigorous prose of the pundits themselves, these contributors reveal the hollowness of what often passes as prevailing wisdom and passionately demonstrate the need for a humanistically complex and democratic understanding of the contemporary world. Available: November 2004Pub Date: January 2005

Mass media and anthropology. --- Communication and society. --- Communication in anthropology. --- Communication --- Specialists. --- Common fallacies. --- Blunders --- Errors, Popular --- Fallacies, Common --- Information, Misattributed --- Misattributed information --- Misconceptions, Popular --- Misinformation --- Mistakes, Popular --- Popular errors --- Popular misconceptions --- Errors --- Authorities (Persons) --- Experts --- Persons --- Intellectuals --- Communication and politics --- Politics and communication --- Anthropology --- Anthropology and mass media --- Political aspects. --- Common fallacies --- Médias et anthropologie --- Communication en anthropologie --- Spécialistes --- Erreurs populaires --- Social aspects --- Aspect social --- Aspect politique --- Misinformation (Common fallacies) --- america. --- american foreign policy. --- anthology. --- anthropologists. --- anthropology. --- biology. --- contemporary world. --- controversial topics. --- democratic. --- dinesh dsouza. --- essay collection. --- ethnic violence. --- fieldwork. --- gendered violence. --- globalization. --- history and sociology. --- humanistic. --- modern critique. --- nonfiction essays. --- political thought. --- poverty. --- pundits. --- race issues. --- robert kaplan. --- samuel huntington. --- social issues. --- social justice. --- social science. --- thomas friedman. --- under scrutiny. --- welfare. --- yugoslavia. --- Social aspects.