Books published by publisher Smithsonian Institution Press

Engines of Change is based on a Smithsonian Institution exhibit of the same title. The principal theme is the importance of technological transfer. It ventures beyond discussion of machines and tools to consider the effects of geographical dimension, natural resources, business practices, the role of women, ethnic diversity, and education. In this work the authors present a pictorial history of the Industrial Revolution in America, derived from surviving artifacts, historical prints, and other graphic materials. By means of this work they bring about a fuller understanding of the major developments in American technology, business, economics, and labor, tracing the migration of technology and technologists from Europe to America, where skilled craftsmen—combined with the richness of natural resources and the energy and innovations released by the young nation's political freedoms—enabled industrialism to flourish.

Shooting the Sun reinterprets the Ida ritual of the Umeda society of Papua New Guinea, described in Alfred Gell's modern classic Metamorphosis of the Cassowaries: Umeda Society, Language and Ritual (1975). Bernard Juillerat and eight other distinguished scholars, including Gell, apply a range of theoretical constructs - Freudian, Marxist, gender-based, and Lacanian, among others - to Ida ceremonies and the similar Yangis ritual of the neighboring Yafar people.Shooting the Sun begins with Juillerat's description and analysis of the Yangis ritual. Drawing on a secret exegesis provided by Yafar experts, Juillerat interprets the Ida-Yangis rituals as a reformulation of the oedipal ontogenetic scenario, with shooting arrows toward the sun as the ritual's finale, representing a decisive separation from the mother's womb (the earth) and the appropriation of the mother's breast (the sun).Five anthropologists and two psychoanalysts - including Andre Green, Francois Manenti, Marilyn Strathern, Richard Werbner, and Roy Wagner - comment on Juillerat's and Gell's analyses. Juillerat assesses the proposed theoretical concepts, reconsidering Yangis and the mythology that sustains it in light of this assessment and providing some recently uncovered ethnographic material. Shooting the Sun is significant both for the ethnographic data it contains and for the theoretical sophistication it displays.

Ethics on the Ark presents a passionate, multivocal discussion - among zoo professionals, activists, conservation biologists, and philosophers - about the future of zoos and aquariums, the treatment of animals in captivity, and the question of whether the individual, the species, or the ecosystem is the most important focus in conservation efforts. Contributors represent all sides of the issues. Some advocate proposals to increase zoos' work in captive breeding programs. Others call for zoos to turn away from exotic, charismatic species and focus instead on community education programs aimed at protecting local fauna and habitats. Still others contend that zoos ought to be abolished.Moving from the fundamental to the practical, from biodiversity to population regulation, from animal research to captive breeding, Ethics on the Ark represents an important gathering of the many fervent and contentious viewpoints shaping the wildlife conservation debate.