Stephen Hugh-Jones – författare

When it was first published in 1979, this book, together with its companion volume, From the Milk River, by Christine Hugh-Jones, was hailed as setting 'a new standard for South American ethnographers, one to be emulated' (Third World Quarterly). Both are now available for the first time in paperback. The book is an extended study in English of Amazonian ritual. Through an analysis of a secret men's cult widespread throughout Northwest Amazonia, Hugh-Jones builds up a general picture of a South American Indian society, and of a religious and cosmological system that is common to a large area of Northwest Amazonia. The book is also an exercise in the anthropological interpretation of ritual, myth and religious symbolism from a structuralist point of view.

This book concerns barter, a transaction in which objects are exchanged directly for one another without the use of money. Economists treat barter as an inefficient alternative to market exchange, and assume that it is normal only in 'primitive' economies or marks the breakdown of more developed exchange mechanisms. For their part, anthropologists have been more interested in the social and moral complexities of the 'gift', and treat barter dismissively as mere haggling. The authors of this collection do not accept that barter occupies a residual space between monetary and gift economies. Using accounts from different parts of the world, they aim to demonstrate that it is more than a simple and self-evident economic institution. Barter may constitute a mode of exchange with its own social characteristics occupying a specific moral space. This novel treatment of barter represents an original and topical addition to the literature on economic anthropology.

The domestic unit is inseparable from its homestead, and the 'house', at once a physical place and a social unit, is often also a unit of production and consumption, a cult group, and even a political faction. Inspired by Lévi-Strauss's suggestion that the multi-functional noble houses of medieval Europe were simply the best-known examples of a widespread social institution, the contributors to this collection analyse 'house' systems in Southeast Asia and South America, exploring the interrelationships between buildings, people, and ideas. They reveal some of the ways in which houses can stand for social groups and serve as images of process and order.

First published in 1967, The Giants of Asia discusses the growth of Asian nationalism and Asian power. It surveys the major Asian countries and the three major forms that Asian nationalism has taken: constitutional democracy in India and initially in Pakistan, the pre-war militarism of Japan, and nationalist communism in China. The author discusses the problems of unity and government after the withdrawal of European power. He has been extraordinarily successful in conveying unfamiliar ideas concretely and simply – in surveying this vast unfamiliar field with simple clarity. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of politics, history, and Asian studies.