The most successful new textbook for living in a multicultural and global age, now in a concise Essentials Edition.Covering the essential concepts that drive cultural anthropology today in a newly streamlined format, Ken Guest's Essentials of Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for a Global Age shows students that now, more than ever, global forces affect local culture, and that the tools of cultural anthropology are vital to participating in a global society. A toolkit approach emphasizes the discipline's big questions and reinforces key concepts to show that these tools are useful beyond the classroom in relationships, campus life, workplaces, religious communities, and our globalizing world. An analytical, anthropological approach to accessible, real-world examples challenges students to examine aspects of everyday life they might otherwise overlook. An Ethnicity and Nationalism chapter opens with a story of two brothers soccer players on the German and Ghanaian national teams, respectively and looks at the complexities of ethnicity through the relatable lens of a sporting event. The Global Economy follows cocoa as it travels from war torn Côte d'Ivoire to supermarket shelves worldwide, highlighting the fascinating global connections of everyday items. A rich media package furthers this approach with documentary and ethnographic film clips curated by an anthropologist who works as a filmmaker and screenwriter. These clips available via DVD and in the Coursepack, where they are accompanied by quizzes, exercises, and activities are ideal for initiating classroom discussion and showing students how anthropology applies to their lives. Engaging contemporary research with an emphasis on globalizationEssentials of Cultural Anthropology includes current, complete chapters on Race and Racism, Ethnicity and Nationalism, Sexuality, and Class and Inequality, each demonstrating how globalization is a key force in today's increasingly interconnected world. In addition to highlighting compelling research, this brief edition explores how contemporary anthropologists are tackling the field's big questions and provides extensive coverage of more than 25 ethnographies, illustrating the impact of fieldwork in all areas of anthropology. A toolkit approach explores the big questions, reinforces key concepts, and shows why it all mattersAnthropology is presented as a set of tools including research strategies, practical ideas, and analytical perspectives that helps us better understand and engage the world around us. This toolkit approach frames every chapter: Each chapter opens with an engaging story about a familiar contemporary event Coca-Cola and the environment in India, a kiss, Hurricane Katrina, the World Cup, and more that encourages students to carefully consider, and recognize the relevance of, daily events they may otherwise take for granted. Big questions serve as chapter section titles, stimulate interest in practical applications, and are reinforced in end-of-chapter reviews. The companion Fieldwork Journal challenges students to apply cultural anthropology to their own lives with guiding questions and hands-on activities. Thinking Like an Anthropologist end-of-chapter discussions ask students to apply what they've learned to the real world.