3 Review(s)

This outline of a general theory of social evolution was first articulated in "Social Evolution: A Critical History", and further elaborated and applied to the most important social transformations of the past 10,000 years of world prehistory and history. This account of that social evolution begins with the Neolithic revolution, which marked the shift from hunter-gatherer societies to societies based on agriculture. It charts the origins of civilization and the state, and depicts the transition, after the 16th century AD, from feudalism to modern capitalism in Western Europe and Japan, to culminate in the gradual emergence of the modern world. Not only does the author assess the extent to which evolutionary transformations have led to human progress, but he uses his interpretation of recent evolutionary changes to project the human future over the next century. Is humankind capable of avoiding nuclear war, ecological disaster and economic collapse? In the event of survival, what is the future likely to hold in terms of the form of social, economic and political organization?Eschewing popular trends of postmodernism and historical particularism in recent social theory, this book should be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, historians, philosophers and political scientists, indeed for all serious social thinkers concerned with the meaning of the human past and the possible direction of world society in the near future. Stephen K. Sanderson is the author of "Macrosociology: An Introduction" and "Social Evolutionism".