Existing approaches to the study of social evolution are insufficient for the task of explaining the full range of social evolution from the Neolithic Revolution down to the present day. Some anthropological approaches shed considerable light on the evolution of preindustrial and precapitalist societies but are less capable of explaining the evolution of the modern world. Sociological approaches usually have the opposite result: they shed light on the evolution of the modern world but falter with respect to premodern times. This article presents a comprehensive formal-propositional theoretical approach to social evolution that combines the strengths of anthropological and sociological approaches while minimizing their weaknesses. The theoretical approach offered, referred to as evolutionary materialism, comprises propositions concerned with the directional nature of world history, the substance or content of social evolution, the principal causal factors in social evolution, the adaptational character of social evolution, the interplay of agency and structure in social evolution, the units of social evolution, the pace of social evolution, and methods of studying social evolution. The second half of the article attempts a brief logical and empirical justification of evolutionary materialism.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AndersonPerry. 1974. Lineages of the Absolutist State. London: New Left Books.
2.
BoasFranz. [1896]1940. “The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology”. Pp. 270–280 in Race, Language, and Culture, by Franz Boas. New York: Macmillan.
3.
BoydRobertRichersonPeter J.1985. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
4.
CarneiroRobert L.1970. “A Theory of the Origin of the State”. Science169: 733–738.
5.
CarneiroRobert L.1972. “The Devolution of Evolution”. Social Biology19: 248–258.
6.
CarneiroRobert L.1981. “The Chiefdom: Precursor of the State”. Pp. 37–79 in The Transition to Statehood in the New World, edited by JonesGrant D.KautzRobert R.New York: Cambridge University Press.
7.
CarneiroRobert L.1987. “Further Reflections on Resource Concentration and its Role in the Rise of the State”. Pp. 245–260 in Studies in the Neolithic and Urban Revolutions (British Archaeological Reports, International Series, No. 349), edited by ManzanillaLinda. Oxford, UK.
8.
ChandlerTertius. 1987. Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth. Lewiston, NY: St. David's University Press.
9.
Chase-DunnChristopherHallThomas D., eds. 1991. Core/periphery Relations in Precapitalist Worlds. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
10.
CherlinAndrew J.1992. Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage. Rev. edn.Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
11.
ChildeV. Gordon. 1936. Man Makes Himself. London: Watts & Co..
12.
ChildeV. Gordon. 1951. Social Evolution. London: Watts & Co..
13.
ChildeV. Gordon. 1954. What Happened in History. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books (first edn.1942).
14.
CohenMark Nathan. 1977. The Food Crisis in Prehistory: Overpopulation and the Origins of Agriculture. New Haven: Yale University Press.
15.
CohenMark NathanArmelagosGeorge J., eds. 1984. Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture. New York: Academic Press.
16.
CollinsRandall. 1975. Conflict Sociology: Toward an Explanatory Science. New York: Academic Press.
17.
CollinsRandall. 1979. The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification. New York: Academic Press.
18.
CollinsRandall. 1986a. Max Weber. A Skeleton Key. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
19.
CollinsRandall. 1986b. Weberian Sociological Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press.
20.
CollinsRandall. 1988. Theoretical Sociology. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
21.
FaganBrian M.1989. People of the Earth: An Introduction to World Prehistory. 6th edn. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.
22.
GiddensAnthony. 1981. A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
23.
GiddensAnthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
24.
GouldStephen Jay. 1989. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. New York: Norton.
25.
HarrisMarvin. 1968. The Rise of Anthropological Theory. New York: Crowell.
26.
HarrisMarvin. 1974. Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture. New York: Random House.
27.
HarrisMarvin. 1977. Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures. New York: Random House.
28.
HarrisMarvin. 1979. Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. New York: Random House.
29.
HarrisMarvin. 1985. Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture. New York: Simon & Schuster.
30.
HarveyDavid. 1989. The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
31.
JohnsonAllen W.EarleTimothy. 1987. The Evolution of Human Societies. Stanford, CAStanford University Press.
32.
KohlbergLawrence. 1981. The Philosophy of Moral Development. New York: Harper & Row.
33.
KuhnThomas S.1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
34.
LaudanLarry. 1977. Progress and its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth. Berkeley: University of California Press.
35.
LenskiGerhard. 1966. Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification. New York: McGraw-Hill.
36.
LenskiGerhard. 1970. Human Societies: A Macro-level Introduction to Sociology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
37.
Lévy-BruhlLucien. 1923. Primitive Mentality. Trans. by ClareLilian A.London: George Allen & Unwin.
38.
MandelbaumMaurice. 1971. History, Man, and Reason: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Thought. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
39.
MannMichael. 1986. The Sources of Social Power, Vol. 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
40.
MorganLewis Henry. [1877]1974. Ancient Society, or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization. Gloucester, MAPeter Smith.
41.
NisbetRobert A.1969. Social Change and History: Aspects of the Western Theory of Development. New York: Oxford University Press.
ParsonsTalcott. 1971. The System of Modern Societies. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
44.
PryorFrederic L.1986. “The Adoption of Agriculture: Some Theoretical and Empirical Evidence”. American Anthropologist88: 879–897.
45.
ReddingRichard W.1988. “A General Explanation of Subsistence Change: From Hunting and Gathering to Food Production”. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology7: 56–97.
46.
RueschemeyerDietrichStephensEvelyn HuberStephensJohn D.1992. Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
47.
SahlinsMarshall D.1958. Social Stratification in Polynesia. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
48.
SahlinsMarshall D.1960. “Evolution: Specific and General”. Pp. 12–44 in Evolution and Culture, edited by SahlinsMarshall D.ServiceElman R.Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
49.
SandersonStephen K.1990. Social Evolutionism: A Critical History. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
50.
SandersonStephen K.1991. Macrosociology: An Introduction to Human Societies. 2nd edn.New York: HarperCollins.
51.
SandersonStephen K. In press. “Explaining the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism: The Japanese Case and its Theoretical Significance”. Review.
52.
ServiceElman R.1971. Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective. 2nd edn.New York: Random House.
53.
ShorterEdward. 1975. The Making of the Modern Family. New York: Basic Books.
54.
SpencerHerbert. 1972. Herbert Spencer on Social Evolution. Edited by PeelJ.D.Y.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
55.
StewardJulian H.1949. “Cultural Causality and Law: A Trial Formulation of the Development of Early Civilizations”. American Anthropologist51:1–27.
56.
StewardJulian H.1955. Theory of Culture Change: The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
57.
TaageperaRein. 1978. “Size and Duration of Empires: Systematics of Size”. Social Science Research7:108–127.
58.
TainterJoseph A.1988. The Collapse of Complex Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press.
59.
TillyCharles. 1990. Coercion, Capital, and European States, A.D. 990–1990. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
60.
TylorEdward Burnett. 1871. Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom. 2 vols. London: John Murray.
61.
TylorEdward Burnett. [1881]1916. Anthropology: An Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization. New York: D. Appleton.
62.
Van den BerghePierre L.FrostPeter. 1986. “Skin Color Preference, Sexual Dimorphism, and Sexual Selection: A Case of Gene Culture Co-evolution”. Ethnic and Racial Studies9:87–113.
63.
WallersteinImmanuel. 1974a. “The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis”. Comparative Studies in Society and History16: 387–415.
64.
WallersteinImmanuel. 1974b. The Modern World-system: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press.
65.
WallersteinImmanuel. 1979. The Capitalist World-economy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
66.
WallersteinImmanuel. 1980. The Modern World-system II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-economy, 1600–1750. New York: Academic Press.
67.
WallersteinImmanuel. 1989. The Modern World-system III: The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-economy, 1730–1840s. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
68.
WenkeRobert J.1990. Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind's First Three Million Years. 3rd edn.New York: Oxford University Press.
69.
WhiteLeslie A.1943. “Energy and the Evolution of Culture”. American Anthropologist45: 335–356.
70.
WilkinsonDavid. 1959. The Evolution of Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill.
