The Origins of Human Society (Blackwell History of the World) [Paperback]

Peter Bogucki (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1577181123 | ISBN-13: 978-1577181125 | Publication Date: December 28, 1999 | Edition: 1

The Origins of Human Society traces the development of human culture from its origins over 2 million years ago to the emergence of literate civilization. In addition to a global coverage of prehistoric life, the book pays specific attention to the origins and dispersal of anatomically-modern humans, the development of symbolic expression, the transition from mobile foraging bands to sedentary households, early agriculture and its consequences, the emergence of social differentiation and hereditary ranking, and the prehistoric roots of ancient states and empires.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Bogucki has succeeded admirably in his attempt to review the most up-to-date findings and interpretive issues in world prehistory ... This book will enlarge and modify our understanding of prehistory." Journal of World History

From the Back Cover

The origins and development of human society are explored and illuminated in this compelling history. The book provides readers with an understanding of the evolution of humans and the cultures they established, from the first traces of humanity to the creation of early literate societies.

The author examines how Homo Sapiens emerged as the sole-surviving human species and developed into modern humans. He provides a global account of prehistoric life and the roots of modern societies and empires. The major topics covered include the creation of hierarchical societies and hereditary ranking, the origins of language, the importance of agriculture, the evolution of tool-making, the development of religion, and the beginnings of war.

The Origins of Human Society provides the essential foundation to the study of early civilization and reveals the origins of the major elements of modern human society and culture.

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (December 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1577181123
• ISBN-13: 978-1577181125
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #764,195 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars overview of prehistoric archeology, May 14, 2000

By 

Peter Gray - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Origins of Human Society (Blackwell History of the World) (Paperback)

I have been hoping to find a book that would integrate archeological, genetic, linguistic and ethnographic evidence into a concise yet comprehensive overview of the history of our species. I thought perhaps I had found such a book here, but was wrong. This volume provides a good overview of the archeology of our genus, covering global developments over the past 2 million years. However, it does not integrate genetic or linguistic data well, though both speak to the topics the book attempts to address. While appreciating the author's apparent authority on European archeology, I was dismayed by the treatment of other topics. The question of the origins of our species, despite some opinions otherwise, has been settled in favor of a single origin about 150,000 years ago in Africa, but here the issue is discussed as an open question. Further, treatment of hunter-gatherers, such as views on the sexual division of labor, at times seems awkward in light of other work cited in the book (e.g. Kelly 1995). Such issues lead me to wonder if the author has accepted too much data uncritically; also, the rich archeological data base would be better integrated with the theoretical perspectives of evolutionary psychology and human behavioral ecology. Less critically, the book nicely summarizes archeological and ethnographic evidence bearing on types of human societies, such as chiefdoms. These types of societies, generally discussed in a sequence of increasing sociocultural complexity, are seen as signposts along processes of sociocultural change. It it these latter aspects that provide the book with its main advantages.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, up-to-date overview, October 16, 2002

By 

Julian Katz (Fairfax, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Origins of Human Society (Blackwell History of the World) (Paperback)

Coming to this book as a non-expert, I feared it might be a rather dry overview. But as a scholar fresh from the academic fray, Bogucki provides the general reader with a real sense of the excitement of current arguments and debates, offering what seemed to be very fair and conscientious summaries of other scholars' perspectives on key interpretive issues, such as the origins of inequality and the transition to agriculture etc.

At the same time, he is frank about his own conceptual framework, which assumes that societies can best be understood in terms of the individual agents that constitute them, who are conceived as essentially self-interested. This methodological individualism contrasts with holistic approaches that grant more importance to larger social structures in understanding individual behavior and that therefore tend to see human nature as more variable and plastic over time. Because of his assumptions, Bogucki often seems to me to project back into prehistory very modern sounding individualistic motives. Pleistocene band society represents the constraining force of communism on risk-taking individualism. The post-ice-age "flexible foragers" become distant cousins of Eastern Europeans freed from communist constraints and able at last to exercise consumer freedom and possessive individualism. I felt at times that he was losing a sense of the historical distance between the prehistoric peoples and ourselves and regretted not getting a sense of their otherness especially as expressed in their cultural expression.