Countries and Cultures: Countries and Cultures

This set provides authoritative and up-to-date background information on nearly 200 countries' institutions and governments. It describes and analyzes how they affect citizens in the daily exercise of their rights and responsibilities.

Presents easy-to-understand information on 194 countries and dependencies from around the world.

Covers cultural groups in Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa. Each volume is organized by continent, covering history, politics, customs, religion, education, human rights issues, teen life, and more.

Covers the full spectrum of foods that have been hunted, gathered, cultivated, and domesticated; their nutritional makeup and uses; and their impact on cultures and demography. It offers a geographical perspective on the history and culture of food and drink and takes up subjects from food fads, prejudices, and taboos to questions of food toxins, additives, labeling, and entitlements.

Introduces food culture from numerous countries and cultures around the world, including some from remote and unexpected peoples and places.

Provides information on current religious practices around the world with an emphasis on how religions impact the daily lives of their followers.

Provides comprehensive, global coverage of religion, emphasizing larger religious communities without neglecting the world's smaller religious outposts.

Examines how science and culture intertwine to influence how we think about our identities, desires, relationships, and societal roles today.

The second edition of the International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family revises and expands Macmillan's 1995 Encyclopedia of Marriage and the Family, adopting an international, cross-cultural approach to such diverse topics as adolescent parenthood, family planning, cohabitation, widowhood, domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, codependency and commuter marriages. It includes articles specific to countries and to religious traditions, examining the history of family life within these cultures and discussing how families have been affected by political and social change.

Addresses issues of sex and gender at the personal and the social level; examines issues of identity, status, class, ethnicity, race, and nation; of sexuality and the body; of social institutions and the structures of representation.

Explores the core concepts in feminist theory.

Covers the major theories, research, people and issues in contemporary gender studies.

Presents easy-to-understand information on 194 countries and dependencies from around the world. Entries discuss a variety of topics in detail, from banking and securities to climate, from government data to demographic statistics. Also includes biographical essays on national leaders.