This work goes a long way toward dispelling the sterotypes of shamans.

Anthropologist Donald Joralemon asks whether America is really, as many scholars claim, a death-denying culture that prefers to quarantine the sick in hospitals and the elderly in nursing homes. His answer is a reasoned no. In his view, Americans are merely struggling to find cultural scripts for the exceptional conditions of dying that our social world and medical technologies have thrust upon us. The book
-is written in the first-person for a broad audience by a senior anthropologist, making it an authoritative yet accessible textbook for courses on death and dying and American...

Anthropologist Donald Joralemon asks whether America is really, as many scholars claim, a death-denying culture that prefers to quarantine the sick in hospitals and the elderly in nursing homes. His answer is a reasoned no. In his view, Americans are merely struggling to find cultural scripts for the exceptional conditions of dying that our social world and medical technologies have thrust upon us. The book:

• is written in the first-person for a broad audience by a senior anthropologist, making it an authoritative yet accessible textbook for courses on death and dying and...

Now in its fourth edition, Exploring Medical Anthropology provides a concise and engaging introduction to medical anthropology. It presents competing theoretical perspectives in a balanced fashion, highlighting points of conflict and convergence. Concrete examples and the author's personal research experiences are utilized to explain some of the discipline's most important insights, such as that biology and culture matter equally in the human experience of disease and that medical anthropology can help to alleviate human suffering.

The text has been thoroughly updated for...

Now in its fourth edition, Exploring Medical Anthropology provides a concise and engaging introduction to medical anthropology. It presents competing theoretical perspectives in a balanced fashion, highlighting points of conflict and convergence. Concrete examples and the author's personal research experiences are utilized to explain some of the discipline's most important insights, such as that biology and culture matter equally in the human experience of disease and that medical anthropology can help to alleviate human suffering.

The text has been thoroughly updated for...