Name: Aliens Like Us?. An Anthropologist's Field Guide to Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life
Price: 472.00 ZAR
Availability: InStock
Author: Anthony Aveni
ISBN: 9780826369475

portada Aliens Like Us?. An Anthropologist's Field Guide to Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life

Aliens Like Us?. An Anthropologist's Field Guide to Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life

Type

Physical Book

Publisher

University of New Mexico Press

Author

Anthony Aveni

Year

2026

Pages

296

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

22.90 x 15.20 x 2.50 cm

ISBN13

9780826369475

Aliens Like Us?. An Anthropologist's Field Guide to Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life

Anthony Aveni (Author) · University of New Mexico Press · Paperback

New Book Imported to South Africa

Delivery: 21 Aug - 28 Aug

R 472

R 472

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Synopsis "Aliens Like Us?. An Anthropologist's Field Guide to Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life"

Are aliens even out there? If so, why do we assume we can imagine what they look like, or how they will relate humanity? Anthony Aveni provides us with a thoroughly entertaining analysis of our fasincation and speculation of what is out there. In this authoritative, accessible, and at times funny and irreverent work, distinguished astronomer/anthropologist Anthony Aveni speaks to the trained astrophysicist and the curious layperson alike about a simple but previously unexplored question: Why do we assume aliens, if they are really out there, behave just like us? Aveni’s newest work departs from the usual scientific treatment of extraterrestrial intelligence by probing the historical and widely neglected anthropological record, which offers relevant analogous incidents of contact among terrestrial cultures. Beginning with theories of the evolution of life and culture advocated by astrobiologists, Aliens Like Us? explores how the Western cultural imagination is influenced by ways of knowing that are deeply embedded in the minds of the questioners—for example, how we consider the ownership of property, the idea of progress, and even the way we classify things. The lessons of anthropology offer not only value structures from other cultures that differ profoundly from our own but also testify to the diverse ways in which "alien" cultures interact. Finally, on the question of potential first contact, Aveni closes with a fascinating exploration of the image of extraterrestrials in popular culture that is derived in part from the hugely influential realm of science fiction.