The Harmless People
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
At the edge of the Kalahari Desert, where survival demands extraordinary ingenuity and grace, lives one of the world's oldest and most misunderstood peoples — the Bushmen of southern Africa, who call themselves the Ju/'hoansi, or the harmless people. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's landmark work of anthropological observation chronicles her time living among these remarkable hunter-gatherers in the 1950s, presenting with vivid intimacy their daily rituals, family bonds, spiritual beliefs, and the delicate ecosystems upon which their entire civilization rests. With the precision of an ethnographer and the sensitivity of a poet, Thomas illustrates a world of profound social complexity hidden beneath an outwardly simple existence, one where laughter, music, and storytelling are as vital as the hunt itself. The Harmless People stands as one of the most enduring works of 20th-century anthropological literature, not merely as a document of a vanishing way of life, but as a moral inquiry into what it means to live in harmony with the natural world. Thomas writes with an unadorned yet deeply lyrical prose style that draws the reader irresistibly into the red sands and acacia groves of the Kalahari, arguing implicitly — and powerfully — that so-called civilised societies have much to learn from those they once dismissed as primitive. Decades after its first publication, this quietly revolutionary book still poses a question that refuses easy answers: who, in the end, is truly harmless?
Author: Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Format: Paperback
Genre: Anthropology
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
At the edge of the Kalahari Desert, where survival demands extraordinary ingenuity and grace, lives one of the world's oldest and most misunderstood peoples — the Bushmen of southern Africa, who call themselves the Ju/'hoansi, or the harmless people. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's landmark work of anthropological observation chronicles her time living among these remarkable hunter-gatherers in the 1950s, presenting with vivid intimacy their daily rituals, family bonds, spiritual beliefs, and the delicate ecosystems upon which their entire civilization rests. With the precision of an ethnographer and the sensitivity of a poet, Thomas illustrates a world of profound social complexity hidden beneath an outwardly simple existence, one where laughter, music, and storytelling are as vital as the hunt itself. The Harmless People stands as one of the most enduring works of 20th-century anthropological literature, not merely as a document of a vanishing way of life, but as a moral inquiry into what it means to live in harmony with the natural world. Thomas writes with an unadorned yet deeply lyrical prose style that draws the reader irresistibly into the red sands and acacia groves of the Kalahari, arguing implicitly — and powerfully — that so-called civilised societies have much to learn from those they once dismissed as primitive. Decades after its first publication, this quietly revolutionary book still poses a question that refuses easy answers: who, in the end, is truly harmless?