The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues

The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues PDF Author: Leonid Grinin
Publisher: ООО "Издательство "Учитель"
ISBN: 5705705476
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 545

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Book Description
Issues of formation and evolution of the early (archaic) state continue to remain among those problems which have not found generally accepted solutions yet. New research shows more and more clearly that pathways to statehood and early state types were numerous. On the other hand, research has detected such directions of sociocultural evolution, which do not lead to state formation at all, whereas within certain evolutionary patterns transition to statehood takes place on levels of complexity far exceeding the ones indicated by conventional evolutionist schemes. Contributors to The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues represent both traditional and non-traditional points of view on evolution of statehood. However, the data presented in the volume seem to demonstrate in a fairly convincing manner a great diversity of pathways to statehood, as well as non-universality of transformation into states of complex and even supercomplex societies.

The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues

The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues PDF Author: Leonid Grinin
Publisher: ООО "Издательство "Учитель"
ISBN: 5705705476
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 545

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Book Description
Issues of formation and evolution of the early (archaic) state continue to remain among those problems which have not found generally accepted solutions yet. New research shows more and more clearly that pathways to statehood and early state types were numerous. On the other hand, research has detected such directions of sociocultural evolution, which do not lead to state formation at all, whereas within certain evolutionary patterns transition to statehood takes place on levels of complexity far exceeding the ones indicated by conventional evolutionist schemes. Contributors to The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues represent both traditional and non-traditional points of view on evolution of statehood. However, the data presented in the volume seem to demonstrate in a fairly convincing manner a great diversity of pathways to statehood, as well as non-universality of transformation into states of complex and even supercomplex societies.

The Evolution of Social Institutions

The Evolution of Social Institutions PDF Author: Dmitri M. Bondarenko
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030514374
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 662

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Book Description
This book presents a novel and innovative approach to the study of social evolution using case studies from the Old and the New World, from prehistory to the present. This approach is based on examining social evolution through the evolution of social institutions. Evolution is defined as the process of structural change. Within this framework the society, or culture, is seen as a system composed of a vast number of social institutions that are constantly interacting and changing. As a result, the structure of society as a whole is also evolving and changing. The authors posit that the combination of evolving social institutions explains the non-linear character of social evolution and that every society develops along its own pathway and pace. Within this framework, society should be seen as the result of the compound effect of the interactions of social institutions specific to it. Further, the transformation of social institutions and relations between them is taking place not only within individual societies but also globally, as institutions may be trans-societal, and even institutions that operate in one society can arise as a reaction to trans-societal trends and demands. The book argues that it may be more productive to look at institutions even within a given society as being parts of trans-societal systems of institutions since, despite their interconnectedness, societies still have boundaries, which their members usually know and respect. Accordingly, the book is a must-read for researchers and scholars in various disciplines who are interested in a better understanding of the origins, history, successes and failures of social institutions.

African Political Systems Revisited

African Political Systems Revisited PDF Author: Aleksandar Bošković
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1800734735
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Reexamining a classical work of social anthropology, African Political Systems (1940), edited by Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, this book looks at the colonial and academic context from which the work arose, as well as its reception and its subject matter, and looks at how the work can help with analysis of current politics in Africa. This book critically reflects upon the history of anthropology. It also contributes to a political anthropology which is aware of its antecedents, self-reflexive as a discipline, conscious of pitfalls and biases, and able to locate itself in its academic, social and political environment.

Comparative Archaeologies

Comparative Archaeologies PDF Author: Ludomir R Lozny
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441982256
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 850

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Book Description
Archaeology, as with all of the social sciences, has always been characterized by competing theoretical propositions based on diverse bodies of locally acquired data. In order to fulfill local, regional expectations, different goals have been assigned to the practitioners of Archaeology in different regions. These goals might be entrenched in local politics, or social expectations behind cultural heritage research. This comprehensive book explores regional archaeologies from a sociological perspective—to identify and explain regional differences in archaeological practice, as well as their existing similarities. This work covers not only the currently-dominant Anglo-American archaeological paradigm, but also Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa, all of which have developed their own unique archaeological traditions. The contributions in this work cover these "alternative archaeologies," in the context of their own geographical, political, and socio-economic settings, as well as the context of the currently accepted mainstream approaches.

History & Mathematics

History & Mathematics PDF Author: Leonid E. Grinin
Publisher: ООО "Издательство "Учитель"
ISBN: 5705754647
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Our Yearbook ‘History and Mathematics’ has already celebrated its 10th anniversary and has confidently entered its second decade. The common feature of all our Yearbooks, including the present volume, is the usage of formal methods and social studies methods intheir synthesis to analyze different historical phenomena. The present Yearbook (which is the seventh in the series) is subtitled ‘Big History Aspects’. This issue is devoted to the problems of evolutionary development of the world. In no way will it be a digression from the direction which we have initially defined for ourYearbook, but just an extension of the scope of the research. The matter is that there are two kinds of history: the history of nature (or more exactly the Universe and the Earth) and the history of humans and mankind. It is not surprising that the idea of historicism penetrated almost every scientific field. At the same time the search for common foundations of this endless in its diversity world has intensified. One of the directions of this interdisciplinary search for the unity of the world in its diversity is Universal Evolutionism (Big History). Mathematical and formal methods help to understand much deeply both natural and human history. This issue of the Yearbook consists of four main sections: (I) Patterns of Big History; (II) Hypotheses of Deep Big History; (III) Biological Aspects; (IV) History and Future of Social Systems. We hope that this issue will be interesting and useful both for historians and mathematicians, as well as for all those dealing with various social and natural sciences.

EVOLUTION

EVOLUTION PDF Author: Leonid E. Grinin
Publisher: ООО "Издательство "Учитель"
ISBN: 5705755600
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
The present volume is the sixth issue of the ‘Evolution’ Yearbook series. Our Yearbooks are designed to present to its readers the widest possible spectrum of subjects and issues: from universal evolutionism to the analysis of particular evolutionary regularities in the development of biological, abiotic, and social systems, culture, cognition, language, etc. The main objective of our Yearbook is the creation of a unified interdisciplinary field of research, within which scientists specializing in different disciplines could work within the framework of unified or similar paradigms, using common terminology and searching for common rules, tendencies and regularities. Global evolution (in connection with the Big History) becomes the main subject of our Yearbook. We strive to arrange each issue in such a way that the line from cosmic evolution to the human future is evident. Similar to the previous issues, this Yearbook shows some aspects of the evolutionary advance from the earlier phases to the anticipated future of human society. But on the whole, this volume is devoted to different aspects and facts of megaevolution and some universal theories in an attempt to find common ground in the diversity of manifestation of evolution and its forms at different stages of development. The title of this issue ‘Evolutionary Trends, Aspects, and Patterns’ is fully justified. The volume consists of four sections: Big History's Phases and Long-Term Trends; Cosmic Evolution; The Aspects of Socio-Cultural and Political Evolution; and Looking from the Past into the Future. As before, we strive to arrange every issue in such a way that the line from cosmic evolution to the human future is evident. Megahistory and global evolution still are the main subjects of our Yearbook. This Yearbook will be useful both for those who study interdisciplinary macroproblems and for specialists working in focused directions, as well as for those who are interested in evolutionary issues of Cosmology, Biology, History, Anthropology, Economics and other areas of study. More than that, this edition will challenge and excite your vision of your own life and the new discoveries going on around us.

From House Societies to States

From House Societies to States PDF Author: Juan Carlos Moreno Garcia
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789258642
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
The organization and characteristics of early and ancient states have become the focus of a renewed interest from archaeologists, ancient historians and anthropologists in recent years. On the one hand, neo-evolutionary schemas of political transformation find it difficult to define some of their most basic concepts, such as ‘chiefdom’, ‘complex chiefdom’ and ‘state’, not to mention the transition between them. On the other hand, teleological interpretations based on linear dynamics, from less to increasingly more complex political structures, in successive steps, impose biased and too rigid views on the available evidence. In fact, recent research stresses the existence of other forms of socio-political organization, less vertically integrated and more heterarchical, that proved highly successful and resilient in the long term in tying together social groups. What is more, such forms quite often represented the basic blocks on which states were built and that managed to survive once states collapsed. Finally, nomadic, maritime and mountain populations provide fascinating examples of societies that experienced alternative forms of political organization, sometimes on a seasonal basis. In other cases, their consideration as ‘marginal’ populations that cultivated specialized skills ensured them a certain degree of autonomy when living either within or at the borders of states. This book explores such small-scale socio-political organizations, their potential and the historical trajectories they stimulated. A selection of historical case studies from different regions of the world may help rethink current concepts and views about the emergence and organization of political complexity and the mechanisms that prevented, occasionally, the emergence of solid polities. They may also cast some light over trajectories of historical transformation, still poorly understood as are the limits of effective state power. This book explores the importance of comparative research and long-term historical perspectives to avoid simplistic interpretations, based on the characteristics of modern Western states abusively used retrospectively.

Globalistics and Globalization Studies

Globalistics and Globalization Studies PDF Author: Leonid Grinin
Publisher: ООО "Издательство "Учитель"
ISBN: 5705731671
Category : Globalization
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Today globalization can be treated as the most important global process. It is a multi-faceted phenomenon and in every country it has its own image. One can get a truly objective picture of the rapidly changing and integrating world only through a synthesis of all those particular visions. In the present anthology one can find perceptions of globalization by a number of famous scholars from different countries of the world (Ervin Laszlo, Roland Robertson, Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Randall Collins, Christopher Chase-Dunn, William Thompson and others), but one can also get to know rather peculiar visions of globalization by the Russian scientists. The volume is entitled Globalistics and Globalization Studies. Globalistics may be regarded as a sort of systemic and more or less integrated ‘core’ within Global Studies. The anthology consists of four parts presenting a wide range of views on the meaning of the contemporary epoch, the past and the future of some important global processes. Part 1. Historical Dimension. Part 2. Globalistics, Global Studies and Models. Part 3. Trends, Risks, and Problems. Part 4. Perspectives and the New World Order.

The 21st Century Singularity and Global Futures

The 21st Century Singularity and Global Futures PDF Author: Andrey V. Korotayev
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030337308
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 619

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Book Description
This book introduces a 'Big History' perspective to understand the acceleration of social, technological and economic trends towards a near-term singularity, marking a radical turning point in the evolution of our planet. It traces the emergence of accelerating innovation rates through global history and highlights major historical transformations throughout the evolution of life, humans, and civilization. The authors pursue an interdisciplinary approach, also drawing on concepts from physics and evolutionary biology, to offer potential models of the underlying mechanisms driving this acceleration, along with potential clues on how it might progress. The contributions gathered here are divided into five parts, the first of which studies historical mega-trends in relation to a variety of aspects including technology, population, energy, and information. The second part is dedicated to a variety of models that can help understand the potential mechanisms, and support extrapolation. In turn, the third part explores various potential future scenarios, along with the paths and decisions that are required. The fourth part presents philosophical perspectives on the potential deeper meaning and implications of the trend towards singularity, while the fifth and last part discusses the implications of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Given its scope, the book will appeal to scholars from various disciplines interested in historical trends, technological change and evolutionary processes.

Globalistics and Globalization Studies

Globalistics and Globalization Studies PDF Author: George Modelski.
Publisher: ООО "Издательство "Учитель"
ISBN: 5705745796
Category : Globalization
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
This yearbook is the fourth in the series with the title Globalistics and Globalization Studies. The subtitle of the present volume is Global History & Big History. The point is that today our global world really demands global knowledge. Thus, there are a few actively developing multidisciplinary approaches and integral disciplines among which one can name Global Studies, Global History and Big History. They all provide a connection between the past, present, and future. Big History with its vast and extremely heterogeneous field of research encompasses all the forms of existence and all timescales and brings together constantly updated information from the scientific disciplines and the humanities. Global History is transnational or world history which examines history from a global perspective, making a wide use of comparative history and of the history of multiple cultures and nations. Global Studies express the view of systemic and epistemological unity of global processes. Thus, one may argue that Global Studies and Globalistics can well be combined with Global History and Big History and such a multi-disciplinary approach can open wide horizons for the modern university education as it helps to form a global view of various processes.