Treating Human Evil
July 9th, 2026Gene Anderson gene@ucr.edu July 2026 Doch ihr, ich bitte euch, wollt nicht in Zorn verfallen, Denn alle Kreatur braucht Hilf von allen. Bertolt Brecht (Therefore, I pray you, not to fall into anger; all creatures need help from all.) Significance: Summary The great human problem, throughout all history, is the tendency of people to move from fear and stress to hate, and from hate to displacing the hate downward onto weaker groups. Super-rich corporate entities, especially ones facing decline or challenge, find it expedient to whip up such hatred as a way to get and hold power. They divide the public, allowing them to extract wealth for themelves and their supporters. Privileged groups facing challenge to their privilege are...
China Food Updates
July 14th, 2025/ Stand Straight and Never Bend: Twelve Thousand Years of Feeding People in the Face of Drought, Flood, Fire, and War E. N. Anderson This post consists of material on Chinese food that I have assembled over a lifetime, and not published because I haven’t had enough time or energy to finalize the work. I think this material will be useful, especially to food historians of China. I have organized it, more or less, by historic period, and then by topic, following the outline of my book THE FOOD OF CHINA (1988). A Chinese proverb says: “Freezing to death, stand straight and face the wind; starving to death, never bend” (Rohsenow 2012, proverb D183). This work is dedicated to the...
Many and Varied Worlds of Food
July 14th, 2025MANY AND VARIED WORLDS OF FOOD E. N. Anderson www.krazykioti.com gene@ucr.edu This post consists of material left out of my various books on food because I haven’t had time or energy to pursue the topics enough. It consists of various reading notes and odd observations. They could be useful to food experts and researchers, so here they are. Many of them concern the early history and prehistory of foods in various regions of the world. Note that China is covered separately in the post “China Food Updates” on my website. Contents PART I. SPECIAL TOPICS Early Human Food Good Farmers Gut Microbiota Fermentation Fad Diets PART II. FOOD AND FOOD REGIONS Near East Europe Africa South Asia East Asia Southeast...
SILENT SPRING ARRIVES
June 25th, 2024Silent Spring Arrives: The Collapse of Bird Populations in Riverside, California E. N. Anderson, June 2024 Abstract Silent spring is here. Several mornings this spring I have walked out into my yard and heard nothing. Eventually a mockingbird sings, a dove coos, and slowly a few birds call, but birds are dramatically down in just two years. Rachel Carson’s sad prediction in Silent Spring (1962) has become reality. In 1962, walking out on any California morning was an amazing experience of bird calls and song. It is now almost or totally silent. Almost all species are declining in Riverside now. Many species flourished with the spread of agriculture and suburbs, which brought water, fruit trees, sheltered gardens, and...
Early Ethnobiology: Historical and Personal Notes
May 5th, 2024Early Ethnobiology: Historical and Personal Notes E. N. Anderson University of California, Riverside gene@ucr.edu www.krazykioti.com Abstract To me, the critical moment in ethnobiology was the point at which anthropologists began to specify what words meant in traditional small-scale languages, instead of “translating” words by finding an English or Latin equivalent. Self-conscious use of “native categories” began with Lewis Henry Morgan and Frank Cushing in the 1870s, and won its way slowly against some opposition. The term “ethnobotany” was coined by John Harshbarger in 1895. By the time of John Peabody Harrington, indigenous categories were focal to research, and “ethnozoology” appeared as a term. Harrington had much to do with spreading the idea. I got into the field in 1960, by...
Bibliography of E. N. Anderson
September 2nd, 2021BIBLIOGRAPHY E. N. ANDERSON Just about 8400 pages as of 2021 (after bk 32, article 51, chap 61). Splitting the difference on coauthored books. PUBLISHED Books and Monographs 1. 1970. The Floating World of Castle Peak Bay. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association, Anthropological Studies Series, Vol. 3, 274 pages. 2. 1972. Essays on South China's Boat People. Taipei: Orient Cultural Service. 146 pages. 3. 1973. Eugene N. Anderson and Marja L. Anderson. Mountains and Water. Taipei: Orient Cultural Service. 179 pages. 4. 1978. Eugene N. Anderson and Marja L. Anderson. Fishing in Troubled Waters: Research on the Chinese Fishing Industry in West Malaysia. 346 pages. Taipei: Orient Cultural Service. 5. 1978. A Revised, Annotated Bibliography of the Chumash and...
Cool quotations
October 21st, 2019Cool stuff “Cool” is remarkably enduring as a word. It comes from the West African concept, according to Robert Faris Thompson (Jessica Ogilvie, “You Know It,” LAT, Nov. 10, 2012, p.E7). Chevere is South American Spanish for “cool.” Traveling light…. The train done gone and the Greyhound bus don’t run But walkin’ ain’t crowded and I won’t be here long. Traditional blues verse Got the key to the highway, I’m booked out and bound to go, Gone to leave here runnin’ cause walkin’ is mo’ slow Traditional blues verse
The Wolf You Feed
October 21st, 2019The Wolf You Feed E. N. Anderson gene@ucr.edu www.krazykioti.com ** Abstract Studies of genocide find that once killing is started, almost everyone joins in. People suddenly change from peace and order to violent murder, and often back to peace when the dictator falls. This can be explained only by the existence of both potentialities within people. Human evil is here defined as gratuitous harm to people and other lives. It very often comes from simply following orders or doing a job, or from “greed” (gain by predatory taking from others), but most often it comes from hatred and defensiveness. At worst—and very commonly—it causes people to hurt themselves simply to hurt disliked others. At root, it can be traced...
Northwest Coast: Traditional Indigenous Relationships with Plants and Animals
March 10th, 2019Northwest Coast: Traditional Indigenous Relationships with Plants and Animals E. N. Anderson Draft of March 2019 This is a book in progress. It is about half done. What is needed is a search through old collections of “myths and texts” to find as much documentation as I can of traditional conservation and sustainability ideas. I have also only begun work on the art section and some other sections. I have been working on this book off and on for over 30 years, and at 78 I fear I will not live to finish it. The press of events has made it impossible to work for the immediate future. So here is half of it, for anyone that wants that much! ...
California: Traditional Indigenous Relationships with Plants and Animals
March 10th, 2019California: Traditional Indigenous Relationships with Plants an California: Traditional Indigenous Relationships with Plants and Animals Work in progress; please do not cite without permission. This is intended to be one part of a book that will also include a section on the Pacific Northwest, thus covering the Pacific coast of North America from the Mexican border (or just south of it) to southern Alaska. The book is on traditional plant and animal management and ideology. It draws heavily on myths and texts, especially early recordings from the days when texts were important to anthropology (sadly no longer true—though some stalwart souls are still recording them). I am interfacing biology with culture, using phenomenology and ethnobiology as the main ways into...