This new book examines the entire range of human societies, past and present, and the various forces that brought about social evolution. It focuses on the roles of economics, technology, population, and ecology in the long-term evolution of human societies; and provides detailed coverage of the rise of capitalism, modern industrial societies, and globalization.

Each chapter concludes with “For Further Reading.”

Preface.

1. Introduction: 10,000 Years of Social Evolution.

The Ancestral Environment.

The Neolithic Revolution.

The Rise of Civilization and the State.

The Rise of Modern Capitalism and Industrialism.

2. Theories of Social Evolution and Development.

Classical Evolutionism.

Marxian Evolutionism.

Twentieth-Century Evolutionism: First Generation.

V. Gordon Childe.

Leslie White.

Julian Steward.

Twentieth-Century Evolutionism: Second Generation.

Talcott Parsonss Idealist Evolutionism.

Gerhard Lenskis Technological Evolutionism.

Marvin Harriss Cultural Materialism.

Twentieth-Century Evolutionism: Third Generation.

3. Preindustrial Societies: Hunter-Gatherers and Horticulturalists.

Hunter-Gatherer Societies.

Subsistence Technology.

The Original Affluent Society?

Economic Life.

Social Inequalities and Political Life.

Simple Horticultural Societies.

Subsistence Technology.

Economic Life.

Social Inequalities and Politics.

Intensive Horticultural Societies.

Subsistence Technology.

Economic Life and Stratification.

Politics.

4. Preindustrial Societies: Agrarian and Pastoral Societies.

Agrarian Societies.

Subsistence Technology.

Economic Life.

Stratification.

Politics.

Pastoral Societies.

Subsistence.

Political Economy.

Causes of the Evolution of Preindustrial Societies.

The Evolution of Subsistence Technology.

The Evolution of Political Economy.

5. The Rise of the Modern World

The Emergence of Economic Markets.

Societies in Relation to the Market.

Aspects of the Market in Preindustrial Societies.

Some Qualifications: Precapitalist Commercialism and its Growth.

The Origins of Modern Capitalism.

European Feudalism.

Commercial Expansion and the Decline of Feudalism.

The Nature of Capitalism.

Early Capitalism Between the Thirteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.

The Seventeenth Century and Mercantilism.

Capitalism as a World-System.

The Capitalist World-Economy from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries.

The Development of Capitalism in Japan.

Explaining the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism.

The Political Sphere: The Formation of National States.

6. Industrialization the the Expansion of the World-System.

The Industrial Revolution and the Emergence of Industrial Capitalism.

The Industrial Revolution and its Causes.

The Industrial Revolution in World-System Perspective.

Industrial Capitalism Since the Late Nineteenth Century.

The Japanese Transition to Industrial Capitalism.

Hegemonic Rise and Fall in the World-System.

7. Industrial Capitalist Societies.

Stratification in Industrial Capitalist Societies.

Income Inequalities.

Inequalities of Wealth.

The Class Structure of Industrial Capitalist Societies.

Social Mobility Within Modern Capitalism.

The Origins of Parliamentary Democracy.

Capitalism and the Welfare State.

The Rise and Expansion of Mass Education.

The Demographic Transition.

The Rise of a Postindustrial Society?

8. The Rise and Demise of State Socialism.

The Origin and Nature of State Socialism.

State Socialism and the Capitalist World-Economy.

Reform Within State Socialism and the Transition to Postsocialism.

Stratification Within State Socialism.

The Modern Communist State: Leninist Regimes.

The Collapse of Communism.

Postsocialism: Achievements, Failures, Prospects.

9. Economic Development and Underdevelopment.

The Nature of Underdevelopment.

Why Underdevelopment?

Modernization Theory.

Dependency Theory.

World-System Theory.

Explaining Underdevelopment: Some Conclusions.

Development in East Asia.

The Biggest Success Stories: The East Asian Tigers.

The Rise of China.

Development in Latin America.

Sub-Saharan Africa: A Failure of Development .

World-System Position and the Form of the State.

10. Globalization.

The Nature of Globalization.

Economic Globalization.

Political Globalization.

Sociocultural Globalization.

What is Driving the Globalization Process?

Globalization and Its Critics.

Globalization and the Environment.

Is Globalization Something New?

11. Retrospect and Prospect: The Last 10,000 Years and the Next 100.

The Past 10,000 Years: Human Progress?

The Standard of Living.

The Quantity and Quality of Work.

Equality.

Democracy and Freedom.

The Concept of Progress Revisited.

How to Judge a Society.

Future Trends: The Very Large Scale.

Future Trends: The Merely Large Scale.

Conclusions: The Future from the Perspective of a General Theory of History.

Glossary.

Bibliography.

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World Societies: The Evolution of Human Social Life

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