The influential authors significantly update their popular introductory text that invites students to reflect on their lives in the context of the combustible leap from modern to postmodern life. The authors show how culture is central to understanding many world problems as they challenge readers to confront the problems and possibilities of an era in which the futures of the physical and social environments seem uncertain. As culture rapidly changes in the 21st century, the authors have successfully incorporated these nuances with many important updates on race and racism, Black Lives Matter, the rise of populist politics, ISIS, new social media, feminist perspectives on sex work, trans and non-gender conforming identities, and more. New to this edition: New data, text box examples, photos, exercises, study questions, and glossary terms appear throughout. New discussions added of arts-based and participatory approaches to research, historical changes in the perception of deviance, legalization of marijuana; Islam vs. secularism in France, new forms of socialization, heteronormative and essentialist language related to sex and gender, intersections of social class and other identities, the prison industrial complex, informal sharing economies, atheism, and more. New text boxes include: Young Saudis Find Freedom in their Phones; How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco's Life; School-to-Prison Pipeline; India's Reproductive Assembly Line; Workers Feel Pain of Layoffs; Like Prohibition, the fight over guns is about something else; and Micro-aggression and Changing Moral Cultures.