Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2015 - Social & Behavioral Sciences — Anthropology — Asian and Asian American Studies

The rugged landscapes straddling western Mongolia and south Siberia witnessed a succession of prehistoric cultures that ultimately gave rise to the great steppe empires of historic times.  With no written records, these peoples speak to the modern world only through their spectacular rock art and the vivid imagery of their surviving burials.  The author of this seminal study is a pioneer in investigating these vanished cultures through keen, well-reasoned analysis of their artistic legacy, juxtaposed to the regions broader folkloric traditions.  Based on pathbreaking fieldwork in some of Asias most remote corners, this new book expands greatly on the authors earlier monograph, The Deer-Goddess of Ancient Siberia (1993), to reveal the ecological and spiritual world of Inner Eurasian peoples during their transition from hunter-gatherers to pastoralists.  Adorned with hauntingly beautiful photos by Gary Tepfer and well-chosen line drawings illustrating key artifacts, this assessment of long-muted societies is an inspired triumph of dedicated scholarship and an inspirational work of art in its own right.  It may well remain the most revealing interpretation of ancient rock art in South Siberia until the stones themselves begin to speak with human voices.Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries.

Knipe (emer., South Asian studies, Univ. of WisconsinMadison) provides an essential work of anthropological scholarship, a product of his more than 35 years of field research as well as careful textual analysis.  It is a rare resource for anyone interested in India's Vedic traditions, their continued embodiment in living practice, and their potential loss.  Knipe bases his study in the region of the Godavari River delta in southeastern India and centers in exclusively Brahmin residential quarters that he contextualizes in relation to nearby villages and towns.  The primary focus is on the lives of three generations of men whom he terms "Traditionalists, Selectors," and "Opportunists" because of lifestyle shifts due to the influence of modern education, popular media, new employment opportunities, and outward migration.  A separate chapter gives close attention to the roles of women and life-cycle rites that order birth and childhood, traditional training, marriage, and householder life.  The book is well illustrated with diagrams and photographs and includes a helpful glossary and selective bibliography.  It is a model work of contemporary Indology that surely will be widely cited long into the future.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above.