{"product_id":"the-harmless-people-paperback","title":"The Harmless People - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eElizabeth Marshall Thomas\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A study of primitive people which, for beauty of . . . style and concept, would be hard to match.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the 1950s Elizabeth Marshall Thomas became one of the first Westerners to live with the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert in Botswana and South-West Africa. Her account of these nomadic hunter-gatherers, whose way of life had remained unchanged for thousands of years, is a ground-breaking work of anthropology, remarkable not only for its scholarship but for its novelistic grasp of character. On the basis of field trips in the 1980s, Thomas has now updated her book to show what happened to the Bushmen as the tide of industrial civilization--with its flotsam of property rights, wage labor, and alcohol--swept over them. The result is a powerful, elegiac look at an endangered culture as well as a provocative critique of our own. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"The charm of this book is that the author can so truly convey the strangeness of the desert life in which we perceive human traits as familiar as our own. . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Harmless People\u003c\/i\u003e is a model of exposition: the style very simple and precise, perfectly suited to the neat, even fastidious activities of a people who must make their world out of next to nothing.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ch3\u003eFront Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eA study of primitive people which, for beauty of...style and concept, would be hard to match.\" -- The New York Times Book Review \u003cbr\u003eIn the 1950s Elizabeth Marshall Thomas became one of the first Westerners to live with the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert in Botswana and South-West Africa. Her account of these nomadic hunter-gatherers, whose way of life had remained unchanged for thousands of years, is a ground-breaking work of anthropology, remarkable not only for its scholarship but for its novelistic grasp of character. On the basis of field trips in the 1980s, Thomas has now updated her book to show what happened to the Bushmen as the tide of industrial civilization -- with its flotsam of property rights, wage labor, and alcohol -- swept over them. The result is a powerful, elegiac look at an endangered culture as well as a provocative critique of our own. \u003cbr\u003e\"The charm of this book is that the author can so truly convey the strangeness of the desert life in which we perceive human traits as familiar as our own....The Harmless People is a model of exposition: the style very simple and precise, perfectly suited to the neat, even fastidious activities of a people who must make their world out of next to nothing.\" \u003cbr\u003e-- The Atlantic\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn the basis of field trips in the 1980s, Thomas has now updated her book to show what happened to the Bushmen as the tide of industrial civilization-with its flotsam of property rights, wage labor, and alcohol-swept over them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eBetween 1950 and 1956 \u003cb\u003eElizabeth Marshall Thomas\u003c\/b\u003e accompanied three expeditions to visit the Bushmen hunter-gatherers of Southwest Africa (now Namibia) and Bechuanaland (now Botswana). At that time the Bushmen were the last significant population who still lived by hunting and gathering, the economy practiced by all human beings and the ancestors of human beings for millions of years. Few firsthand accounts of hunter-gatherer life were written before her book \u003ci\u003eThe Harmless People\u003c\/i\u003e, and because, since its publication, most Bushmen have been evicted from their old homes or forced to change their traditional ways, it remains one of only a few accounts of the old way of life. Thomas, who has spent the last 20 years studying animal behavior, makes her home in New Hampshire. Her other writing includes a nonfiction book about Dodoth pastoralists in northern Uganda, \u003ci\u003eWarrior Herdsmen\u003c\/i\u003e, and a novel about prehistoric hunter-gatherers in the Northern Hemisphere, \u003ci\u003eReindeer Moon\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 336\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.86 x 7.88 x 5.4 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eIllustrated:\u003c\/strong\u003e Yes\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e October 23, 1989\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51761567826208,"sku":"9780679724469","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/f045d0f2ff6f31fed21e7c3c47b123a0.webp?v=1780210667","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/the-harmless-people-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}