The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues
Publisher: Uchitel Publishing House
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Volgograd, Russia
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 544
Description: Issues of formation and evolution of the early (archaic) state continue to remain among those problems which have not found generally accepted solutions yet. New research shows more and more clearly that pathways to statehood and early state types were numerous. On the other hand, research has detected such directions of sociocultural evolution, which do not lead to state formation at all, whereas within certain evolutionary patterns transition to statehood takes place on levels of complexity far exceeding the ones indicated by conventional evolutionist schemes. Contributors to The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues represent both traditional and non-traditional points of view on evolution of statehood. However, the data presented in the volume seem to demonstrate in a fairly convincing manner a great diversity of pathways to statehood, as well as non-universality of transformation into states of complex and even supercomplex societies
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: Part I: Theory; title: 1. Alternatives of Social Evolution Dmitri M. Bondarenko, Leonid E. Grinin, and Andrey V. Korotayev; title: 2. Was the Chiefdom a Congelation of Ideas? Robert L. Carneiro; title: 3. Beyond States and Empires: Chiefdoms and Informal Politics Patrick Chabal, Gary Feinman, and Peter Skalník; title: 4. Alternative Models of Middle Range Society. ‘Individualistic’ Asia vs. ‘Collectivistic’ America?; title: Yuri E. Berezkin; title: 5. Was the State Inevitable? Henri J. M. Claessen; title: 6. The Early State and Its Analogues: A Comparative Analysis Leonid E. Grinin; title: Part II: Early States; title: 7. Early Dynastic Egypt: A Socio-Environmental/Anthropological Hypothesis of ‘Unification’; title: Dmitri B. Proussakov; title: 8. The Ruler as Possessor of Power in Sumer Vladimir V. Emelianov; title: 9. Ritual and Rationality: Religious Roots of the Bureaucratic State in Ancient China; title: Richard Baum; title: 10. Conquest Warfare, Strategies of Resistance, and the Rise of the Zapotec Early State; title: Charles S. Spencer and Elsa M. Redmond; title: 11. The Pristine Myth of the Pristine State in America Richard P. Schaedel and David G. Robinson; title: 12. The Transition to Statehood in Central Europe Ludomir R. Lozny; title: 13. Formation and Development of States in the Congo Basin Eleonora S. L'vova; title: Part III: Sedentary Alternatives and Analogues; title: 14. The Chiefdom: Precursor of the Tribe? (Some Trends of Political Evolution in North-East Yemeni Highlands) Andrey V. Korotayev; title: 15. From Local Communities to Megacommunity: Biniland in the 1st Millennium B.C. – 19th Century A.D. Dmitri M. Bondarenko; title: 16. Greece: The Stateless Polis (11th– 4th Сenturies B.C.) Moshe Berent; title: 17. Rome: Socio-political Evolution in the 8th– 2nd Centuries B.C. Dmitri V. Dozhdev; title: 18. Early State and Democraсy Leonid E. Grinin; title: Part IV. Nomadic Alternatives and Analogues; title: 19. Cultural Capital, Livestock Raiding, and the Military Advantage of Traditional Pastoralists; title: William Irons; title: 20. Nomads of the Eurasian Steppes in Historical Retrospective Anatoly M. Khazanov; title: 21. Nomadic Empires in Evolutionary Perspective Nikolay N. Kradin; title: 22. Mongolian Nomadic Society of the Empire Period Tatyana D. Skrynnikova