100 books like To Cherish the Life of the World

By Margaret M. Caffrey (editor), Patricia A. Francis (editor),

Here are 100 books that To Cherish the Life of the World fans have personally recommended if you like To Cherish the Life of the World. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of With a Daughter's Eye: Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson

Elesha Coffman Author Of Margaret Mead: A Twentieth-Century Faith

From my list on Margaret Mead and her life.

Why am I passionate about this?

Elesha Coffman writes about religion and ideas in twentieth century America. A journalist before she trained as a historian, she’s especially interested in the circulation of ideas—how they were communicated, how they were received, why some ideas gained traction and others did not. Her first book examined how a magazine, The Christian Century, helped define the religious tradition known as the Protestant mainline. She didn’t realize that Margaret Mead belonged to that tradition until she was invited to write about Mead for the Oxford Spiritual Lives series, billed as spiritual biographies of people who are famous for something other than being spiritual. Elesha lives in Texas, but she’d rather be at the beach in North Carolina.

Elesha's book list on Margaret Mead and her life

Elesha Coffman Why did Elesha love this book?

The reader gets a three-for-one deal in this incredibly thoughtful book: an intimate look at two towering anthropologists by their daughter, a distinguished anthropologist herself. Mary Catherine Bateson understood her difficult parents and their groundbreaking work as well as anyone could.

Talking to her father, she wrote, was “a form of argument that was also a dance.” Her mother was “a one-person conference.” The reader gets to know each member of this remarkable family through insightful anecdotes, rare family photos, conceptual diagrams, and lucid prose.

By Mary Catherine Bateson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked With a Daughter's Eye as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In "With a Daughter's Eye," writer and cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson looks back on her extraordinary childhood with two of the world's legendary anthropologists, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. This deeply human and illuminating portrait sheds new light on her parents' prodigious achievements and stands alone as an important contribution for scholars of Mead and Bateson. But for readers everywhere, this engaging, poignant, and powerful book is first and foremost a singularly candid memoir of a unique family by the only person who could have written it.


Book cover of Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century

Elesha Coffman Author Of Margaret Mead: A Twentieth-Century Faith

From my list on Margaret Mead and her life.

Why am I passionate about this?

Elesha Coffman writes about religion and ideas in twentieth century America. A journalist before she trained as a historian, she’s especially interested in the circulation of ideas—how they were communicated, how they were received, why some ideas gained traction and others did not. Her first book examined how a magazine, The Christian Century, helped define the religious tradition known as the Protestant mainline. She didn’t realize that Margaret Mead belonged to that tradition until she was invited to write about Mead for the Oxford Spiritual Lives series, billed as spiritual biographies of people who are famous for something other than being spiritual. Elesha lives in Texas, but she’d rather be at the beach in North Carolina.

Elesha's book list on Margaret Mead and her life

Elesha Coffman Why did Elesha love this book?

Margaret Mead belonged to a rambunctious generation of anthropologists who were trained by Franz Boas at Columbia. His star students were unconventional women—Mead, Ruth Benedict, Ella Deloria, and Zora Neal Hurston—who asked different questions and told different stories than any scholars before them. Were gender and race merely cultural constructions, and what would it take to overhaul them? How did Native Americans and Black Americans understand themselves, without the distortion of the white gaze? Could humans learn to live with their differences, or would the fascists win?

King unpacks the human drama in which these scholars participated on both the interpersonal and the global scale.

By Charles King,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Gods of the Upper Air as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Winner
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award

From an award-winning historian comes a dazzling history of the birth of cultural anthropology and the adventurous scientists who pioneered it—a sweeping chronicle of discovery and the fascinating origin story of our multicultural world.

A century ago, everyone knew that people were fated by their race, sex, and nationality to be more or less intelligent, nurturing, or warlike. But Columbia University professor Franz Boas looked at the data and decided everyone was wrong. Racial categories, he insisted, were biological fictions. Cultures did not come in neat packages…


Book cover of The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy

Elesha Coffman Author Of Margaret Mead: A Twentieth-Century Faith

From my list on Margaret Mead and her life.

Why am I passionate about this?

Elesha Coffman writes about religion and ideas in twentieth century America. A journalist before she trained as a historian, she’s especially interested in the circulation of ideas—how they were communicated, how they were received, why some ideas gained traction and others did not. Her first book examined how a magazine, The Christian Century, helped define the religious tradition known as the Protestant mainline. She didn’t realize that Margaret Mead belonged to that tradition until she was invited to write about Mead for the Oxford Spiritual Lives series, billed as spiritual biographies of people who are famous for something other than being spiritual. Elesha lives in Texas, but she’d rather be at the beach in North Carolina.

Elesha's book list on Margaret Mead and her life

Elesha Coffman Why did Elesha love this book?

In her first book, Coming of Age in Samoa, Mead argued that Americans could un-learn a lot of bad ideas about gender and sexuality by studying faraway cultures. She was alternately thanked and blamed for setting in motion the sexual revolution of the 1960s. A few years after her death, a rival anthropologist, Derek Freeman, claimed that her original research was wrong, because she was too naïve to realize that the Samoans were lying to her. People who knew nothing about anthropology but disdained the sexual revolution jumped in on Freeman’s side, blowing up a scholarly debate (that was rooted in a deep, personal grudge) into a cultural firestorm. Anthropologist Paul Shankman waded through the mess to determine that Mead was mostly correct, and Freeman was mostly just bitter. Shankman’s definitive book on the controversy demonstrates how the scientific process works, eventually.

By Paul Shankman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Trashing of Margaret Mead as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1928 Margaret Mead published ""Coming of Age in Samoa"", a fascinating study of the lives of adolescent girls that transformed Mead herself into an academic celebrity. In 1983 anthropologist Derek Freeman published a scathing critique of Mead's Samoan research, badly damaging her reputation. Resonating beyond academic circles, his case against Mead tapped into important public concerns of the 1980s, including sexual permissiveness, cultural relativism, and the nature/nurture debate. In venues from the ""New York Times"" to the TV show ""Donahue"", Freeman argued that Mead had been 'hoaxed' by Samoans whose innocent lies she took at face value. In ""The…


Book cover of Euphoria

Pippa Goldschmidt Author Of Schrödinger's Wife (and Other Possibilities)

From my list on women doing science.

Why am I passionate about this?

Science is still assumed to be a ‘male’ subject in which women are a minority. I should know—I was one of those women when I worked as an astrophysicist. But there have always been women in science and their stories are fascinating, whether told in nonfiction or in fiction. Fiction is ideally placed to convey the emotions behind the scientific processes and the way in which human interactions and relationships influence what happens in the lab.

Pippa's book list on women doing science

Pippa Goldschmidt Why did Pippa love this book?

A novel that is partly based on the real-life anthropologist Margaret Mead and her work in New Guinea in the 1930s, this book had me gripped from the start as it evoked the complex dynamics between the three main characters and their very different approaches to studying Indigenous people.

I was in awe of the power of story-telling in this short book. It shows us how anthropologists might hope to be impartial observers of the people they study, but in reality, these encounters change everyone.

By Lily King,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Euphoria as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The New York Times Top Ten Bestseller

From the author of Writers & Lovers, Euphoria is Lily King's gripping novel inspired by the true story of a woman who changed the way we understand our world.

'Pretty much perfect' - Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Rodham

In 1933 three young, gifted anthropologists are thrown together in the jungle of New Guinea. They are Nell Stone, fascinating, magnetic and famous for her controversial work studying South Pacific tribes, her intelligent and aggressive husband Fen, and Andrew Bankson, who stumbles into the lives of this strange couple and becomes totally enthralled. Within months…


Book cover of The End of War

David Swanson Author Of NATO: What You Need To Know

From my list on how to abolish war.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm the author of several books on this topic and work on this topic as executive director of a nonprofit organization. I see war as one of the dumbest things that we could easily stop doing and as one of the most damaging things we do. It's the reason we are at risk of nuclear apocalypse, the leading cause of homelessness, a leading cause of death and injury, the justification for government secrecy, one of the most environmentally destructive activities, the major barrier to global cooperation on non-optional crises, and one of the main pits into which massive resources are diverted that we all desperately need for useful things.

David's book list on how to abolish war

David Swanson Why did David love this book?

This was one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. Its conclusions will be vigorously resisted by many and yet, in a certain light, considered perfectly obvious to some others.

The central conclusion—that ending the institution of war is entirely up to us to choose—was, arguably, reached by (among many others before and since) John Paul Sartre sitting in a café utilizing exactly no research. But Horgan is a writer for “Scientific American,” and approaches the question of whether war can be ended as a scientist. It’s all about research.

He concludes that war can be ended, has been ended in various times and places, and is in the process (an entirely reversible process) of being ended on Earth right now.

By John Horgan,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The End of War as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

War is a fact of human nature. As long as we exist, it exists. That's how the argument goes.

But longtime Scientific American writer John Horgan disagrees. Applying the scientific method to war leads Horgan to a radical conclusion: biologically speaking, we are just as likely to be peaceful as violent. War is not preordained, and furthermore, it should be thought of as a solvable, scientific problem—like curing cancer. But war and cancer differ in at least one crucial way: whereas cancer is a stubborn aspect of nature, war is our creation. It's our choice whether to unmake it or…


Book cover of Steps to an Ecology of Mind

Corey Anton Author Of Sources of Significance: Worldly Rejuvenation and Neo-Stoic Heroism

From my list on language and symbols and how they relate to the human condition.

Why am I passionate about this?

Corey Anton is Professor of Communication Studies at Grand Valley State University, Vice-President of the Institute of General Semantics, Past President of the Media Ecology Association, and a Fellow of the International Communicology Institute. He is an award-winning teacher and author. His research spans the fields of media ecology, semiotics, phenomenology, stoicism, death studies, the philosophy of communication, and multidisciplinary communication theory.

Corey's book list on language and symbols and how they relate to the human condition

Corey Anton Why did Corey love this book?

Gregory Bateson, an intellectual maverick, had an evolutionary rule named after him when he was a teenager, (his father was a famed geneticist), was the formulator, along with Jurgen Ruesch, of the double-bind hypothesis of schizophrenia, and was a pioneer in the field of mammalian communication. Given its wide range of address to issues within evolutionary biology, psychiatry, anthropology, systems theory, cybernetics, and communication theory, this is a classic “must read” collection of short essays. Bateson’s unrelentingly original and provocative analyses provoke thought and defy any easy categorization. At the very least, he shows how mammalian play, as multileveled interaction, paves the way for the evolution of human language, and also, how human interaction, with its multiple logical types and different kinds of learning, occurs at various levels of abstraction.

By Gregory Bateson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Steps to an Ecology of Mind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Gregory Bateson was a philosopher, anthropologist, photographer, naturalist, and poet, as well as the husband and collaborator of Margaret Mead. With a new foreword by his daughter Mary Katherine Bateson, this classic anthology of his major work will continue to delight and inform generations of readers.

"This collection amounts to a retrospective exhibition of a working life. . . . Bateson has come to this position during a career that carried him not only into anthropology, for which he was first trained, but into psychiatry, genetics, and communication theory. . . . He . . . examines the nature of…


Book cover of Comparing Impossibilities: Selected Essays of Sally Falk Moore

Dean A. Strang Author Of Keep the Wretches in Order: America's Biggest Mass Trial, the Rise of the Justice Department, and the Fall of the IWW

From my list on offering ideas to explore.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a lawyer, law professor, and author of legal history books. Mostly, though, I have much to learn. Importantly, then, I believe in the possibilities of learning. But how? Teaching, in the transitive sense of cramming something into another person's head, is impossible; yet learning is infinitely possible. Ideas are what excite us to learn. In widely varied ways, I have found engaging ideas in—and have learned importantly from—each of these books.

Dean's book list on offering ideas to explore

Dean A. Strang Why did Dean love this book?

A wonderful introduction to, or return visit with, a strikingly interesting and groundbreaking legal anthropologist. Moore's writing is clear and confident, and her thinking fascinating. This book is, to my mind, an invitation to undertake again, at any time, the joys of being a student. Why? She models so well the curiosity, care, and rethinking that are the essence of being a student.

By Sally Falk Moore,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Comparing Impossibilities as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Few scholars have had a more varied career than Sally Falk Moore. Once a lawyer for an elite New York law firm, her career has led her to the Nuremberg trials where she prepared cases against major industrialists, to Harvard, to the Spanish archives where she studied the Inca political system, and to the mountain of Kilimanjaro where she studied the politics of Tanzanian socialism. This book offers a compelling tour of Moore's diverse experiences, a history of her thought as she reflects on her life and thought in the disciplines of anthropology, law, and politics.
The essays range from…


Book cover of Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes

Stephen Benz Author Of Topographies

From my list on the spirit of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.

Why am I passionate about this?

Traveling, meeting people, hearing stories, learning about places and landscapes—this is what my writing is all about. Sometimes it takes the form of nonfiction, sometimes poetry. I’ve had a wandering spirit from early on, finding joy and wonder as a child while sitting in the backseat on road trips, or taking the bus cross-state, or (best of all) riding on a train going anywhere. Reading Kerouac’s On the Road brought everything together: heading out with no particular destination in mind other than finding oneself on the road. And then writing it all down, telling the story. Here are some books that have rekindled the Kerouac spirit for me.

Stephen's book list on the spirit of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

Stephen Benz Why did Stephen love this book?

Curiosity about hobo life led Ted Conover to drop everything and ride the rails for a spell. What he learned became the basis of his first book, Rolling Nowhere. It’s filled with the things I love best about these books: fascinating characters, indelible scenes, and movement through landscapes both sublime and gritty. On every page, there’s a reminder of Kerouac and London. Reading it, I am filled with longing, the urge for going, wanderlust. I’m older now; I’ve done my share of traveling and written about it, too. But maybe I’m not totally done with it: a half-mile from my comfortable house, my street intersects with the road out of town, the city limits sign visible in the distance. And beyond: desert, wide sky, open road. A boundless dreamland.

By Ted Conover,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Rolling Nowhere as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Hopping a freight in the St. Louis rail yards, Ted Conover—winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award—embarks on his dream trip, traveling the rails with “the knights of the road.” Equipped with rummage store clothing, a bedroll, and his notebooks, Conover immerses himself in the peculiar culture of the hobo, where handshakes and intoductions are foreign, but where everyone knows where the Sally (Salvation Army) and the Willy (Goodwill) are. Along the way he encounters unexpected charity (a former cop goes out of his way to offer Conover a dollar) and indignities (what do you do when there are…


Book cover of The Vulnerable Observer

Paul Stoller Author Of Wisdom from the Edge: Writing Ethnography in Turbulent Times

From my list on writing about the wisdom of others.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was passionate about anthropology in the 1970s when I was in my twenties and am still passionate about anthropology in the 2020s in my seventies. Throughout the years I have expressed my passion for anthropology in university classrooms, in public lectures, and in the 16 books I have published. As my mind has matured, I understand more and more fully just how important it is to write powerfully, cogently, and accessibly about the wisdom of others. In all my books I have attempted to convey to the public this fundamental wisdom, none more so than in my latest book, Wisdom from the Edge: Writing Ethnography in Turbulent Times.   

Paul's book list on writing about the wisdom of others

Paul Stoller Why did Paul love this book?

The Vulnerable Observer is a classic work in anthropology in which the author underscores the emotional impact of being a research anthropologist. 

Behar’s wonderfully crafted stories evoke the wisdom of others and demonstrate why it is important for anthropologists to describe the emotional impact of social being in the world. It is an important text for understanding the emotional contours of the human condition.

By Ruth Behar,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Vulnerable Observer as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Eloquently interweaving ethnography and memoir, award-winning anthropologist Ruth Behar offers a new theory and practice for humanistic anthropology. She proposes an anthropology that is lived and written in a personal voice. She does so in the hope that it will lead us toward greater depth of understanding and feeling, not only in contemporary anthropology, but in all acts of witnessing.


Book cover of I Love Myself When I am Laughing: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader

Why am I passionate about this?

If five gentlemen from Mexico, a colored/negro woman from Eatonville, Florida, a former President who happened to be white, with historical privilege, from Plains, Georgia, and two Professors of History can use their knowledge, training, God’s gifts to help us to understand history better, why shouldn't I also be passionate and excited to write. Telling stories, writing, contributing, and unearthing lies and truths so that a child who looks like me – or who does not look like me – is provided a better world. Let me hokey about this – maybe the word is dorky – whatever, the privilege is mine.

Anthony's book list on history books which weave a wonderful tale, while making us laugh, scream, cry and think, while we are bowing and saying bravo at the same time!

Anthony Paul Griffin Why did Anthony love this book?

This work is not a history book but a collection of Zora Neal Hurston’s writings. Hurston wrote fiction and nonfiction and was a trained anthropologist. Her work taught me that history is oft-times found in the strangest places. This reader did this for me – a writer and anthropologist Hurston was. When I read the reader, I wanted to raise my hand and ask questions. Other times, I remained silent, only talking to myself and thinking.

In my former life as a trial lawyer, I remember quoting her writings in a final argument to explain language and culture. As my voice broke, tears flowed – this was the first time I explained the power of this book. They understood, and some of my jurors cried with me.  

By Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked I Love Myself When I am Laughing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The foundational, classic anthology that revived interest in the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God—"one of the greatest writers of our time"—and made her work widely available for a new generation of readers (Toni Morrison).

During her lifetime, Zora Neale Hurston was praised for her writing but condemned for her independence and audacity. Her work fell into obscurity until the 1970s, when Alice Walker rediscovered Hurston's unmarked grave and anthologized her writing in this groundbreaking collection for the Feminist Press.

I Love Myself When I Am Laughing... And Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive established Hurston…


Book cover of With a Daughter's Eye: Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson
Book cover of Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century
Book cover of The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy

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Interested in Margaret Mead, anthropologist, and Christianity?

Margaret Mead 7 books
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