Books published by AltaMira Press

Edited volume on what archaeological mortuary analysis can tell researchers about gender relations in the ancient world.

Outlines a method of inquiry that uses everyday experience as a lens to examine social relations and social organization. This book is of use as a foundational text for classes in sociology, ethnography, and women's studies.

Alexander brings to life the stories of twelve ambitious leaders from the United States and Europe who helped shape the future of the museum world.

This in-depth study of a Jewish man's diary from Nazi-occupied Poland provides an unfiltered view of the struggles of Samuel Golfard, who tried to make sense of and resist the Holocaust that ultimately destroyed him. The diary is complemented by an array of wartime and postwar photographs, newspaper articles, documents, and testimonies that create a fuller picture of Jewish resistance and the perpetration of mass murder in eastern Galicia.

This compelling book tells the story of the Holocaust through the eyes, and fates, of its youngest victims. Following the arc of the persecutory policies of the Nazis and their sympathizers and the impact these measures had on Jewish children and adolescents, the chapters begin with the years leading to the war, to the roundups, deportations, and emigrations, to hidden life and death in the ghettos and concentration camps, and to liberation and coping in the wake of war. This volume examines the reactions of children to discrimination, the loss of livelihood in Jewish homes, and the public humiliation at the hands of fellow citizens and explores the ways in which children's experiences paralleled and diverged from their adult counterparts. The author also reflects upon the role of non-Jewish children as victims, perpetrators, and bystanders.

In this capstone title to the Ethnographer's Toolkit series, Jean J. Schensul and Margaret D. LeCompte explore how ethnographic research intersects with and enhances numerous areas of applied and practice-oriented social science.

History in the Making: The Archaeology of the Eastern Subarctic offers both a critical history and historiography of the Eastern Subarctic from the point of view of the archaeologists and anthropologists who studied it.

Essential Ethnographic Methods introduces the fundamental, face-to-face data collection tools for ethnographers and other qualitative researchers and provides detailed instruction to improve the quality and scope of data collection. .

The Mantle Site is the most detailed analysis of an ancestral Wendat community, discussed in the context of the historical development of Northern Iroquoian societies. It considers themes of identity formation, interaction, and increasing economic and sociopolitical complexity.

Jewish Responses to Persecution, 1933-1946 offers a new perspective on Holocaust history by presenting documentation that describes the manifestations and meanings of Nazi Germany's "Final Solution" from the Jewish perspective. This first volume, taking us from Hitler's rise to power through the aftermath of Kristallnacht, vividly reveals the increasing devastation and confusion wrought in Jewish communities in and beyond Germany at the time. Numerous period photos, documents, and annotations make this unique series an invaluable research and teaching tool. Co-published with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience explores the potential of mobile technologies (cell phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, PDAs) for visitor interaction and learning in museums.

This book sweeps away the last vestiges of social-evolutionary explanations of 'chiefdoms' by rethinking the history of Pre-Columbian Southeast peoples and comparing them to ancient peoples in the Southwest, Mexico, Mesoamerica, and Mesopotamia.

Presents data on European youth gangs, describing important characteristics of these groups, and their similarities and differences to American gangs. This title is suitable as a resource on crime, delinquency and youth development for criminologists, sociologists, youth workers, policy makers, local governments, and law enforcement professionals.

This text surveys Asian-American cinema allowing its aesthetic, cultural, and political diversity and continuities to emerge. The author draws insight from such bodies of scholarship as African-American and Latino film studies, Marxian cultural theory, ethnic studies, and feminism.

Interpretation of Historic Sites offers essential knowledge on how to develop and conduct interpretive programs for every historic site, regardless of size or budget.

Captures the life stories of thirteen visionary museum leaders who helped transform the 19th century's collection of curios into institutions of public service and education. This book recounts the stories of pioneers in American history, science, art, and general museums. It is suitable for those interested in the history of the museum.

This new edition contains the full text of the original volume along with two related articles by the author and a new introduction. This work is suitable for advanced students and academics in anthropology.

Dwelling, Identity, and the Maya offers a new perspective on the ancient Maya that emphasizes the importance of dwelling as a social practice. Contrary to contemporary notions of the self as individual and independent, the identities of the ancient Maya grew from their everyday relations and interactions with other people, the houses and temples they built, and the objects they created, exchanged, cherished, and left behind. Using excavations of ancient Chunchucmil as a case study, it investigates how Maya personhood was structured and transformed in and beyond the domestic sphere and examines the role of the past in the production of contemporary Maya identity.

All social scientists, despite their differences on many issues, ask causal questions about the world. In this anthology, Andrew P. Vayda and Bradley B. Walters set forth strategy and methods to answer those questions.

Little and Shackel use case studies from different regions across the world to challenge archaeologists to create an ethical public archaeology that is concerned not just with the management of cultural resources, but with social justice and civic responsibility.

Providing an overview of the ecological dimension of economic processes, this book presents a framework for understanding the relations between ecosystems and world systems. It also contains reflections by Immanuel Wallerstein, originator of the world-system concept, in which he talks about the various implications of global environmental change.

The Social Construction of Communities examines the formation of ancient communities in the Southwest, focusing especially on the fundamental theoretical concepts of structure, agency, and identity construction.

Killer Commodities addresses the impact of harmful products on consumers throughout the world. These case studies highlight the processes of production and marketing of these products, as well as the nature of relevant public health policies.

An edited volume that tackles the contemporary issues facing Native Americans through community activism, politics, economics, and legislation.

Presents a study of prehistoric religion in Prehispanic Southwest. Drawing on an array of empirical approaches, this book shows the importance of understanding beliefs and ritual for a range of time periods and southwestern societies. It is useful for professional and avocational archaeologists, and for religion scholars and students.

Writing in the San/d details experiences and encounters with First People's ('Bushmen') living in the Kalahari Desert (Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa) (1995-2004), and a Khoi (1984) community in the eastern Cape, South Africa.

This comprehensive handbook provides step-by-step instructions on how to do archaeological fieldwork in North America. The wealth of diagrams, photos, maps and checklists clearly illustrate how to design, fund, research, map, record, interpret, photograph, and present archaeological surveys and excavations.

Collection of original studies on the contemporary practice of archaeology as a professional and scholarly endeavor.

Offers an analysis of public vs private management of prisons, a competition that originated with the introduction of private facilities into the criminal justice system in the 1980s. This book is suitable for public administrators, policy analysts, corrections personnel and criminologists.

Looks at the public understanding of research (PUR) and how it affects what science museums do. This title is a useful resource for science museum professionals who want to guide their institutions and their visitors toward an understanding of and appreciation for research.