In America, almost all the money in circulation passes through financial institutions every day. But in Nigeria's "cash and carry" system, 90 percent of the currency never comes back to a bank after it's issued. What happens when two such radically different economies meet and mingle, as they have for centuries in Atlantic Africa?
The answer is a rich diversity of economic practices responsive to both local and global circumstances. In "Marginal Gains," Jane I. Guyer explores and explains these often bewildering practices, including trade with coastal capitalism and across indigenous...

Shopping is generally considered to be a pleasurable activity. But in reality it can often be complicated and frustrating. Daniel Miller explores the many contradictions faced by shoppers on a typical street in London, and in the process offers a sophisticated examination of the way we shop, and what it reveals about our relationships to our families and communities, as well as to the environment and the economy as a whole.
Miller's companions are mostly women who confront these contradictions as they shop. They placate their children with items that combine nutrition with taste or...

As a place to die, to dispose of the physical remains of the deceased and to perform the rites that ensure that the departed attains a "good state" after death, the north Indian city of Banaras attracts pilgrims and mourners from all over the Hindu world. This book is primarily about the priests and other kinds of "sacred specialists" who serve them, about the way in which they organize their business, and about their representations of death and understandings of the rituals over which they preside.

A fundamental challenge to the foundations of the discipline of international law
Anthony Carty critiques the discipline of international law, showing the necessary place of philosophy within it. He shows you how traditional philosophy has always been an integral part of international law.
Carty explores the extent of the disintegration and confusion in the discipline and offers various ways of renewing philosophical practice. A range of approaches are covered - post-structuralism, neo-Marxist geopolitics, social-democratic constitutional theory and existential phenomenology -...