Anthropologist: Scientist of the People

By Mary Batten

Book Overview

Imagine making your living by hunting, fishing, and collecting wild plants and insects. Imagine having to worry about being attacked by a jaguar or some other wild animal. This is how our ancestors lived for hundreds of thousands of years, but only a few peoples carry on this ancient lifestyle today. One of the few are the Ache, hunter-gatherers living in Paraguay, a country in South America. Magdalena Hurtado is an anthropologist who has been studying the Ache for fifteen years. She has spent years living with the Ache people: learning their language, observing their history. The photographs and text offer invaluable insight into the work of an anthropologist.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618083685
• ISBN13: 9780618083688
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Clarion Books
• Length: 64 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 11.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 10 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 7

Customer Reviews

Great book for kids and adults

I gave this book to my 3 yr old neice and 6 yr old nephew, and they were as fascinated by it as their mother and father were. The pictures are wonderful and the text really gives you the feel of what the lives of one of the last groups of hunter gatherers in the world are like. And it paints a detailed and fascinating picture of what it is like to be an anthropologist studying and loving a people whose lives are so different from our own. A really enjoyable book.

MARVELLOUS INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPOLOGY

This biography of the young Venezuelan anthropologist Magdalena Hurtado provides a very clear description of her fieldwork among one of the world's last foraging peoples, the Ache indians of Paraguay. This beautifully illustated book provides the best available introduction for young readers of what it is an anthropologist does. Although the publishers recommend the book for ages 9-12, my guess is that students in junior high and high school --perhaps especially young women -- will find the book both informative and inspirational.