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Complex Society
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Book Synopsis The Collapse of Complex Societies by : Joseph Tainter
Download or read book The Collapse of Complex Societies written by Joseph Tainter and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory.
Book Synopsis The Formation of Complex Society in Southeastern Mesoamerica by : William R. Fowler, Jr.
Download or read book The Formation of Complex Society in Southeastern Mesoamerica written by William R. Fowler, Jr. and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 1991-08-06 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents discussions on the formation of complex society of Southeastern Mesoamerica throughout pre-Columbian times. These societies include ones from the Early Preclassic or Formative period to those encountered by the Spaniards when they arrived in the early 16th century. Diverse classes of data from archaeology, ethnography, and ethnohistory are utilized. The book provides wide spatial and temporal coverage, as well as a wide diversity of theoretical perspectives. Anyone interested in archeology or the evolution of prehistoric complex societies will find this book fascinating.
Book Synopsis Ancient Complex Societies by : Jennifer C. Ross
Download or read book Ancient Complex Societies written by Jennifer C. Ross and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-01-06 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a detailed examination of the archaeological evidence and written records, this comprehensive text aims to develop a common understanding of what complexity means to archaeologists, and the methods by which they identify and analyze it. In this first new undergraduate textbook on ancient complex societies in two decades, the authors use vivid writing, textboxes on key themes and sites, and a glossary to keep students thoroughly engaged.
Download or read book Collapse written by Jared Diamond and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-03-21 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive is a visionary study of the mysterious downfall of past civilizations. Now in a revised edition with a new afterword, Jared Diamond's Collapse uncovers the secret behind why some societies flourish, while others founder - and what this means for our future. What happened to the people who made the forlorn long-abandoned statues of Easter Island? What happened to the architects of the crumbling Maya pyramids? Will we go the same way, our skyscrapers one day standing derelict and overgrown like the temples at Angkor Wat? Bringing together new evidence from a startling range of sources and piecing together the myriad influences, from climate to culture, that make societies self-destruct, Jared Diamond's Collapse also shows how - unlike our ancestors - we can benefit from our knowledge of the past and learn to be survivors. 'A grand sweep from a master storyteller of the human race' - Daily Mail 'Riveting, superb, terrifying' - Observer 'Gripping ... the book fulfils its huge ambition, and Diamond is the only man who could have written it' - Economis 'This book shines like all Diamond's work' - Sunday Times
Book Synopsis Social Emergence by : R. Keith Sawyer
Download or read book Social Emergence written by R. Keith Sawyer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-10-27 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that societies are complex dynamical systems that can be understood through the concept of emergence.
Book Synopsis The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies by : Michael E. Smith
Download or read book The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies written by Michael E. Smith and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-05 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of a resurgence in the comparative study of ancient societies, this book presents a variety of methods and approaches to comparative analysis through the examination of wide-ranging case studies. Each chapter is a comparative study, and the diverse topics and regions covered in the book contribute to the growing understanding of variation and change in ancient complex societies. The authors explore themes ranging from urbanization and settlement patterns, to the political strategies of kings and chiefs, to the economic choices of individuals and households. The case studies cover an array of geographical settings, from the Andes to Southeast Asia. The authors are leading archaeologists whose research on early empires, states, and chiefdoms is at the cutting edge of scientific archaeology.
Book Synopsis Why Society is a Complex Matter by : Philip Ball
Download or read book Why Society is a Complex Matter written by Philip Ball and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-06-09 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Society is complicated. But this book argues that this does not place it beyond the reach of a science that can help to explain and perhaps even to predict social behaviour. As a system made up of many interacting agents – people, groups, institutions and governments, as well as physical and technological structures such as roads and computer networks – society can be regarded as a complex system. In recent years, scientists have made great progress in understanding how such complex systems operate, ranging from animal populations to earthquakes and weather. These systems show behaviours that cannot be predicted or intuited by focusing on the individual components, but which emerge spontaneously as a consequence of their interactions: they are said to be ‘self-organized’. Attempts to direct or manage such emergent properties generally reveal that ‘top-down’ approaches, which try to dictate a particular outcome, are ineffectual, and that what is needed instead is a ‘bottom-up’ approach that aims to guide self-organization towards desirable states. This book shows how some of these ideas from the science of complexity can be applied to the study and management of social phenomena, including traffic flow, economic markets, opinion formation and the growth and structure of cities. Building on these successes, the book argues that the complex-systems view of the social sciences has now matured sufficiently for it to be possible, desirable and perhaps essential to attempt a grander objective: to integrate these efforts into a unified scheme for studying, understanding and ultimately predicting what happens in the world we have made. Such a scheme would require the mobilization and collaboration of many different research communities, and would allow society and its interactions with the physical environment to be explored through realistic models and large-scale data collection and analysis. It should enable us to find new and effective solutions to major global problems such as conflict, disease, financial instability, environmental despoliation and poverty, while avoiding unintended policy consequences. It could give us the foresight to anticipate and ameliorate crises, and to begin tackling some of the most intractable problems of the twenty-first century.
Book Synopsis The Social Anthropology of Complex Societies by : Michael Banton
Download or read book The Social Anthropology of Complex Societies written by Michael Banton and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Governing Complex Societies by : J. Pierre
Download or read book Governing Complex Societies written by J. Pierre and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-04-25 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Western societies are becoming increasingly complex and challenging to govern, yet the modern state continues to play a central role in governance. This book presents a detailed analysis of the challenges confronting the contemporary state and the processes through which the state addresses those challenges. The notion of 'governing without government' is critiqued; instead, Pierre and Peters argue that what is happening a more a matter of state transformation than state decline.
Book Synopsis Role of Information Science in a Complex Society by : Silva, Elaine da
Download or read book Role of Information Science in a Complex Society written by Silva, Elaine da and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2021-01-15 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of Information Science is intertwined with the complexity present in society. The study object in this field refers to data, information, and knowledge generated, mediated, and appropriated by different individuals in the most diverse human activities. Thus, discussing complex issues that are intertwined with information management, knowledge management, innovation management, organizational intelligence, information mediation, information appropriation, and information literacy is essential for understanding the future perspectives of digital humanity. Role of Information Science in a Complex Society presents discussions that can be applied to local, regional, and national policies aimed at economic and social development and supports innovative actions in economic segments that depend on innovation. Highlighting topics that include information literacy, ethics, knowledge management, and organizational learning, this book is an ideal reference source for academicians, professionals, researchers, and students, as well as entrepreneurs from different economic segments.
Book Synopsis Storage in Ancient Complex Societies by : Linda R. Manzanilla
Download or read book Storage in Ancient Complex Societies written by Linda R. Manzanilla and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-20 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ability to accumulate and store large amounts of goods is a key feature of complex societies in ancient times. Storage strategies reflect the broader economic and political organization of a society and changes in the development of control mechanisms in both administrative and non-administrative—often kinship based—sectors. This is the first volume to examine storage practices in ancient complex societies from a comparative perspective. This volume includes 14 original papers by leading archaeologists from four continents which compare storage systems in three key regions with lengthy traditions of complexity: the ancient Near East, Mesoamerica, and Andes. Storage in Ancient Complex Societies demonstrates the importance of understanding storage for the study of cultural evolution.
Book Synopsis Ancient Titicaca by : Charles Stanish
Download or read book Ancient Titicaca written by Charles Stanish and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-03-12 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the richest and most complex civilizations in ancient America evolved around Lake Titicaca in southern Peru and northern Bolivia. This book is the first comprehensive synthesis of four thousand years of prehistory for the entire Titicaca region. It is a fascinating story of the transition from hunting and gathering to early agriculture, to the formation of the Tiwanaku and Pucara civilizations, and to the double conquest of the region, first by the powerful neighboring Inca in the fifteenth century and a century later by the Spanish Crown. Based on more than fifteen years of field research in Peru and Bolivia, Charles Stanish's book brings together a wide range of ethnographic, historical, and archaeological data, including material that has not yet been published. This landmark work brings the author's intimate knowledge of the ethnography and archaeology in this region to bear on major theoretical concerns in evolutionary anthropology. Stanish provides a broad comparative framework for evaluating how these complex societies developed. After giving an overview of the region's archaeology and cultural history, he discusses the history of archaeological research in the Titicaca Basin, as well as its geography, ecology, and ethnography. He then synthesizes the data from six archaeological periods in the Titicaca Basin within an evolutionary anthropological framework. Titicaca Basin prehistory has long been viewed through the lens of first Inca intellectuals and the Spanish state. This book demonstrates that the ancestors of the Aymara people of the Titicaca Basin rivaled the Incas in wealth, sophistication, and cultural genius. The provocative data and interpretations of this book will also make us think anew about the rise and fall of other civilizations throughout history.
Book Synopsis Simple Rules for a Complex World by : Richard Allen EPSTEIN
Download or read book Simple Rules for a Complex World written by Richard Allen EPSTEIN and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Too many laws, too many lawyers--that's the necessary consequence of a complex society, or so conventional wisdom has it. Countless pundits insist that any call for legal simplification smacks of nostalgia, sentimentality, or naivete. But the conventional view, the noted legal scholar Richard Epstein tells us, has it exactly backward. The richer texture of modern society allows for more individual freedom and choice. And it allows us to organize a comprehensive legal order capable of meeting the technological and social challenges of today on the basis of just six core principles. In this book, Epstein demonstrates how. The first four rules, which regulate human interactions in ordinary social life, concern the autonomy of the individual, property, contract, and tort. Taken together these rules establish and protect consistent entitlements over all resources, both human and natural. These rules are backstopped by two more rules that permit forced exchanges on payment of just compensation when private or public necessity so dictates. Epstein then uses these six building blocks to clarify many intractable problems in the modern legal landscape. His discussion of employment contracts explains the hidden virtues of contracts at will and exposes the crippling weaknesses of laws regarding collective bargaining, unjust dismissal, employer discrimination, and comparable worth. And his analysis shows how laws governing liability for products and professional services, corporate transactions, and environmental protection have generated unnecessary social strife and economic dislocation by violating these basic principles. Simple Rules for a Complex World offers a sophisticated agenda for comprehensive social reform that undoes much of the mischief of the modern regulatory state. At a time when most Americans have come to distrust and fear government at all levels, Epstein shows how a consistent application of economic and political theory allows us to steer a middle path between too much and too little.
Book Synopsis Complex Social Networks by : Fernando Vega-Redondo
Download or read book Complex Social Networks written by Fernando Vega-Redondo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-08 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description
Book Synopsis Divided Existence and Complex Society by : Jan Hendrik Berg
Download or read book Divided Existence and Complex Society written by Jan Hendrik Berg and published by Humanities Press International. This book was released on 1974 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis After Collapse by : Glenn M. Schwartz
Download or read book After Collapse written by Glenn M. Schwartz and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2010-08-15 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Euphrates Valley to the southern Peruvian Andes, early complex societies have risen and fallen, but in some cases they have also been reborn. Prior archaeological investigation of these societies has focused primarily on emergence and collapse. This is the first book-length work to examine the question of how and why early complex urban societies have reappeared after periods of decentralization and collapse. Ranging widely across the Near East, the Aegean, East Asia, Mesoamerica, and the Andes, these cross-cultural studies expand our understanding of social evolution by examining how societies were transformed during the period of radical change now termed “collapse.” They seek to discover how societal complexity reemerged, how second-generation states formed, and how these re-emergent states resembled or differed from the complex societies that preceded them. The contributors draw on material culture as well as textual and ethnohistoric data to consider such factors as preexistent institutions, structures, and ideologies that are influential in regeneration; economic and political resilience; the role of social mobility, marginal groups, and peripheries; and ethnic change. In addition to presenting a number of theoretical viewpoints, the contributors also propose reasons why regeneration sometimes does not occur after collapse. A concluding contribution by Norman Yoffee provides a critical exegesis of “collapse” and highlights important patterns found in the case histories related to peripheral regions and secondary elites, and to the ideology of statecraft. After Collapse blazes new research trails in both archaeology and the study of social change, demonstrating that the archaeological record often offers more clues to the “dark ages” that precede regeneration than do text-based studies. It opens up a new window on the past by shifting the focus away from the rise and fall of ancient civilizations to their often more telling fall and rise. CONTRIBUTORS Bennet Bronson Arlen F. Chase Diane Z. Chase Christina A. Conlee Lisa Cooper Timothy S. Hare Alan L. Kolata Marilyn A. Masson Gordon F. McEwan Ellen Morris Ian Morris Carlos Peraza Lope Kenny Sims Miriam T. Stark Jill A. Weber Norman Yoffee
Book Synopsis The Cultural Experience by : David W. McCurdy
Download or read book The Cultural Experience written by David W. McCurdy and published by Waveland Press. This book was released on 2004-11-03 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cultural Experience has helped generations of undergraduates discover the excitement of ethnographic research through participation in relatively familiar cultures in North American society. Grounded in the interviewing-based ethnographic technique known as ethnosemantics, the latest edition continues to treat ethnography as a discovery process. Students are taught how to set up an ethnographic field study, choose a microculture, and find and approach an informant, as well as how to ask ethnographic questions, record data, and organize and analyze what they have learned. Detailed instruction on how to write an ethnography is also provided. The guidelines are followed by ten short but substantive, well-written student ethnographies on such microcultures as exotic dancing, firefighting, pest extermination, and the work of midwives and police detectives. The Second Edition of this popular classroom volume includes boxed inserts that offer suggestions to aid in the research process, material on how to use observation and narratives with the ethnosemantic approach, an emphasis on how to find cultural themes and adaptive challenges by analyzing ethnographic field data, and extensive strategies for writing the final ethnographic paper. It also presents a comprehensive treatment of ethical responsibilities as well as a discussion of the significance of ethnographic research and its applications in the workplace.
