ENGLISH

A Treatise on Social Theory, Volume 2

By Walter Garrison Runciman

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
1989
ISBN
9780511583469, 9780521249591, 9780521369831
DOI
10.1017/CBO9780511583469
Google Books ID
298Sa79fkRkC
Open Library ID
OL7734300M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
8 MB (8016242 bytes)
Volume
2
Edition
First
Pages
507\507
Orientation
yes
Scanned
yes
Time added
2011-08-31 04:54:40

Description

This second of three volumes sets out a general account of the structure and evolution of human societies. The author argues first that societies are to be defined as sets of roles whose incumbents are competitors for access to, or control of, the means of production, persuasion and coercion; and second, that the process by which societies evolve is one of competitive selection of the practices by which roles are defined analagous, but not reducible, to natural selection. He illustrates and tests these theses with evidence drawn from the whole range of societies documented in the historical and ethnographic record. The result is an original, powerful and far-reaching reformulation of evolutionary sociological theory which will make it possible to do for the classification and analysis of societies what Darwin and his successors have done for the classification and analysis of species.

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