Nature and Sociology

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Deborah Lupton

Medicine as Culture provides a broad overview of the way medicine is experienced, perceived and socially constructed in Western societies. Deborah Lupton cogently links the different theoretical perspectives informing scholarship and research directed towards understanding the socio-cultural dimensions of medicine, illness and the body at the end of the twentieth century. At a time of increasing disillusionment with scientific medicine and the mythology of the beneficent, god-like physician, there is also - paradoxically - a growing dependence on biomedicine to provide the answers to social as well as medical problems. This book illuminates why attitudes to medicine are characterized by such strong paradoxes, and why issues of disease, illness and the medical encounter are surrounded by controversy, conflict, power struggles and emotion. Integrating cultural studies, social history and contemporary theories of the body, Medicine as Culture will be essential reading for students and academics in the sociology of health and illness, the sociology of consumption and everyday life, medical anthropology, the history of medicine, health communication, women's studies, nursing studies and cultural studies.

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Inga Muscio

An ancient title of respect for women, the word "cunt" long ago veered off this noble path. Inga Muscio traces the road from honor to expletive, giving women the motivation and tools to claim "cunt" as a positive and powerful force in their lives. With humor and candor, she shares her own history as she explores the cultural forces that influence women's relationships with their bodies. Sending out a call for every woman to be the Cuntlovin' Ruler of Her Sexual Universe, Muscio stands convention on its head by embracing all things cunt-related.

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Joe Rhatigan

With fun illustrations and photographs, this book describes the ways we can get injured and sick and explores the armor that battles to keep the bad things out, the warriors that attack what manages to sneak in, and the "maintenance crew" that tries to clean up the mess and heal us. Disease by disease and injury by injury, this basic medical text takes young readers through various ailments, breaking each one down into a simple explanation of the problem.

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Charles L. Redman

In central Arizona, between Phoenix and Flagstaff, archaeologists have uncovered a series of settlements that may be more representative of the prehistoric Southwest than the celebrated civilization of the Anasazi and Hohokam. People of the Tonto Rim tells the story of the people who lived there from about A.D. 1000 to 1300, recounting the investigation of their society as well exploring the implications for our understanding of other societies beyond the Southwest. The excavations around Shoofly Village near Payson, Arizona, began in 1984. Working with students and amateur volunteers, a team of archaeologists unearthed a surprising variety of material remains. The small communities of this upland area, organized into villages, hamlets, and households, used a diversity of building styles and left behind a half million artifacts. Their society, though less prosperous than that of the Anasazi and lacking the productivity of highly centralized states, exhibited flexibility and resilience that enabled it to last for several centuries. The people of the Tonto Rim, Charles Redman argues, integrated a diversity of lifestyles, incorporating such external innovations as domesticated plants, masonry, and contiguous architecture, as well as special pottery techniques, and therefore flourished longer than their better-known neighbors. Introducing the questions and techniques that motivate archaeologists, People of the Tonto Rim leads the reader through the entire excavation process, yielding that rare kind of book equally compelling to scholar and general reader alike.