Since World War II, the biological and technological have been fusing and merging in new ways, resulting in the loss of a clear distinction between the two. This entanglement of biology with technology isn't new, but the pervasiveness of that integration is staggering, as is the speed at which the two have been merging in recent decades. As this process permeates more of everyday life, the urgent necessity arises to rethink both biology and technology. Indeed, the human body can no longer be regarded either as a bounded entity or as a naturally given and distinct part of an unquestioned whole.

"Sturgeon admirably demonstrates how local people live with the reality of continually negotiated political, social and ecological boundaries between China and Thailand. A scholarly, interesting and timely treatment of an important issue, the ever-changing and local nature of political and environmental transformation of a minority culture not just in a single political setting, but on the boundaries of multi-state formation and resource control." - Pacific Affairs

The subject of Jewish identity is one of the most vexed and contested issues of modern religious and ethnic group history. This interdisciplinary collection draws on work in law, anthropology, history, sociology, literature, and popular culture to consider contemporary and historical responses to the question: "Who and what is Jewish?"

The Boy Who Shot the Sheriff explores this a little-known story of a young boy's fate in the juvenile justice system during the bloodiest years in the nation's penitentiaries.

Japanese and American scholars explore new, multidisciplinary ways of thinking about peace and how to achieve it. Noriko Kawamura is associate professor of history at Washington State University. Yoichiro Murakami and Shin Chiba teach at the International Christian University in Tokyo.

Based on research in northern Thailand, this ethnographic study examines Hmong cosmological beliefs about the cycle of life as expressed in practices surrounding birth, marriage, and death, and the gender relationships evident in these practices.