Anthropological writings on humor are not very numerous or extensive, but they do contain a great deal of insight into the diverse mental and social processes that underlie joking and laughter. On the basis of a wide range of ethnographic and textual materials, the chapters examine the cognitive, social, and moral aspects of humor and its potential to bring about a sense of amity and mutual understanding, even among different and possibly hostile people. Unfortunately, though, cartoons, jokes, and parodies can cause irremediable distress and offence. Nevertheless, contributors'...

Drawing on family materials, historical records, and eyewitness accounts, this book shows the impact of war on individual women caught up in diverse and often treacherous situations. It relates stories of partisans in Holland, an Italian woman carrying guns and provisions in the face of hostile soldiers, and Kikuyu women involved in the Mau Mau insurrection in Kenya. A woman displaced from Silesia recalls fleeing with children across war-torn Germany, and women caught up in conflicts in Burma and in Rwanda share their tales. War's aftermath can be traumatic, as shown by journalists in...