Window on Humanity: A Concise Introduction to Anthropology: 2026 Release ISE

1. What Is Anthropology?

2. Culture

3. Doing Anthropology

4. Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

5. The Primates

6. Early Hominins

7. The Genus Homo

8. The First Farmers

9. The First Cities and States

10. Language and Communication

11. Making a Living

12. Political Systems

13. Families, Kinship, and Marriage

14. Gender

15. Religion

16. Ethnicity and Race

17. Applying Anthropology

18. The World System, Colonialism, and Inequality

19. Anthropology's Role in a Globalizing World 

Window on Humanity is a brief introduction to general anthropology. It covers the four subfields—biological anthropology, anthropological archaeology, sociocultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology—as well as anthropology's two dimensions—academic and applied anthropology. Its shorter length increases instructors' options for assigning additional reading, such as case studies, within a one-semester course. Window on Humanity can also work well in a quarter system, for which traditional texts may be too long. While presenting core concepts and topics, Window also aims to demonstrate anthropology's relevance to our 21st-century world.