Pathways to Power

New Perspectives on the Emergence of Social Inequality
1., 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4614-2654-7
Verlag: Springer-Verlag New York

Buch, Englisch, 298 Seiten, Previously published in hardcover, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm

Reihe: Fundamental Issues in Archaeology

There are few questions more central to understanding the prehistory of our species than those regarding the institutionalization of social inequality. Social inequality is manifested in unequal access to goods, information, decision-making, and power. This structure is essential to higher orders of social organization and basic to the operation of more complex societies.

An understanding of the transformation from relatively egalitarian societies to a hierarchical organization and socioeconomic stratification is fundamental to our knowledge about the human condition. In a follow-up to their 1995 book Foundations of Social Inequality, the Editors of this volume have compiled a new and comprehensive group of studies concerning these central questions. When and where does hierarchy appear in human society, and how does it operate?

With numerous case studies from the Old and New World, spanning foraging societies to agricultural groups, and complex states, Pathways to Power provides key historical insights into current social and cultural questions.

Zielgruppe

Graduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Price, T. Douglas

Feinman, Gary M.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Sozialethnologie: Familie, Gender, Soziale Gruppen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziale Ungleichheit, Armut, Rassismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Vor- und Frühgeschichte, prähistorische Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Who Tilted the Playing Field.- Degrees and Kinds of Inequality.- Gimme That Old Time Religion.- Traces of Inequality at the Origin of Culture.- Decentralized Complexity.- Bitter Arrows and Generous Gifts.- Who Benefits from Complexity?- Dual-Processual Theory.

Über Autor(innen)

T. Douglas Price is the Director of the Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Gary M. Feinman is Curator, Mesoamerican and Central American Anthropology, The Field Museum, Chicago, IL.