"For forty years, in a variety of books and articles, Gerhard Lenski has become the most influential proponent of ecological and evolutionary explanations of human societies, their development and transformations, from the Stone Age to the present. In his newest book, Lenski offers a succinct but comprehensive statement of the full body of his theory followed by demonstration of how it can be used to generate new and valuable insights when applied to a set of highly diverse issues. These include debates concerning the origin of ancient Israel and it distinctive culture, the rise of the West in the modern era, the highly varied trajectories of development of Third World nations in recent decades, and the failure of Marxist efforts to transform society in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. In the concluding chapter, Lenski discusses a number of other issues and areas where ecological-evolutionary theory may be fruitfully applied in the future."--Publisher's description. Read more...
PART I. PRINCIPLES: Evolutionary theory: an introduction --
Problem and method --
The biological foundations of human societies --
Determinants of the characteristics of individual societies: the independent variables --
Characteristics of sets of societies --
Characteristics of the global system of societies --
Ecological-evolutionary theory and its alternatives: a comparison --
PART II. APPLICATIONS: The origins and early development of ancient Israel --
The rise of the West --
Trajectories of development among societies --
An experiment that failed --
PART III. EPILOGUE: Retrospect and prospect.
