Hall Edward T. Beyond Culture

New York, London, Toronto: Anchor Books; Doubleday, 1976. — 320 p.Beyond culture is a classic in cultural and anthropological literature. The book explores a broad amount of subjects and discusses how they are all interrelated -- from depletion of resources to misalignment of education and the human body. These are all driven by culture and the disability of people to recognize the impact culture has on their thinking and behavior. People become more aware of their own culture when interacting with other cultures... in fact, perhaps understanding of your own culture is perhaps the key learning when studying other cultures.
The book consists of 15 chapters, all relative short. Chapters sometimes cover completely different topics, yet always relate back to the main thread of the book... transcending culture by better recognition of your own culture. The first couple of chapters introduce concepts which are used throughout the book. A key concept introduced is the idea of humans creating 'extensions' (tools) which perform functions that previously were performed by the body. The extensions are able to develop faster than the human body.
Early chapters cover differences in cultures related to different experience of time (S-time and P-time), different experience of rhythm and different experience of space. Edward Hall is well-known for the concepts of low-context and high-context cultures, which are introduced in six to eight.
Later chapters discuss human and culture from different perspectives. Chapter ten introduces the action chains which provide a way of analyzing cultural situations. Later chapters cover the functioning of the brain and how this relates to education, cultural irrationality, and identification.The Paradox of Culture
Man as Extension
Consistensy and Life
Hidden Culture
Rhythm and Body Movement
Context and Meaning
Contexts, High and Low
Why Context?
Situation-Culture's Building Block
Action Chains
Covert Culture and Action Chains
Imagery and Memory
Cultural and Primate Bases of Education
Culture as an Irrational Force
Culture as Identification
Notes