Our Common Denominator

Christoph Antweiler is an anthropologist and Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Bonn, Germany. He is a member of the Academia Europaea, London and serves on the advisory board of the Humboldt Forum, Berlin.

• List of TablesPrefaceIntroductionChapter 1. Humankind: Current Societal DebatesChapter 2. A World of Cultures: Their Differences and LikenessesChapter 3. Cultures and Human Nature: Human Beings are biologically CulturalChapter 4. Universals: Examples from Several RealmsChapter 5. Methods: Deduction, Case Studies and ComparisonChapter 6. Taxonomy: The Forms, Levels and Depth of UniversalsChapter 7. Toward Explanation: Why do Universals exist?Chapter 8. Critical Positions: Arguments against UniversalismChapter 9. Synthesis: Human Universals and the Human SciencesBibliographyIndex

"Antweiler's is a quite meticulous and lucid study of human universals in the discipline of anthropology after more than a century of neglect in favor of the particularistic, relativist study of human cultures through the method of ethnography. His review is comprehensive and searching." Choice"...as a clarion call to expand our anthropological minds to include more cultural commonalities, as well as for greater intellectual exchange between not only anthropologists working in disparate areas but also anthropologists and practitioners of other disciplines, Antweiler's endeavour succeeds skillfully." JASO