Customer Reviews

Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression

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I read about 100 books a year. This is almost certainly the book that changed my perspectives, on a variety of subjects, the most in the last year. Firstly it is extremely well written and its drawing on various theoretical models and use of statistical data seems exemplary. Secondly, its approach really made me think hard (which is why we read, isn't it?)about how I see the world and how that shapes my views of reality. I have worked as an executive in the corporate sector for 35 years and felt how powerfully this approach could be used there. The chronic lack of real talent to solve real issues of the business and environment, is very much compounded by issues of dominance and restriction of the search for talent and the education of talent to elite groups who are often clueless about the world. And this book provides a critical thinking 101 approach quite independent of its content.The growing hereditary nature of management succession (think President of the USA)is part of social dominance. The socially dominant send their kids to the best schools and these seem to be structured to restrict critical thinking or divert it into postmodernist irrelevance. This book helps you see such apparently unconnected phenomena in new ways. And it might direct students towards structurally relevant issues of society rather than the marginal. While this book is an obvious resource for the oppressed, I heartily recommend it to members of socially dominant power groups like myself. If you want to understand the abuses that social dominance relationships cause and also begin to think of ways to solve our civilization's real problems by attenuating social hierarchy, this is a good place to begin. But the book will also show how if your thinking is politically conservative, such re-think will be a real struggle: but I think worth it. Watch how you react and see what that tells you about your prejudices.

On the downside (not perhaps of the book but of reality), it does not offer much hope, in that all known societies have had patterns of social dominance and the attempts to radically change this have been catastrophic: think Pol Pot etc. So the book really needs a follow up of approaches, examples where its powerful insights have fueled genuine local and insightful initiatives to reverse some of the effects described, without creating counter repression or new elites as bad as the old. Also some integration with economics would be helpful: there is a lot of inefficiency in the so called free market and some synthesis of this work with work on the limitations of neo-classical economics would be good.

So I strongly recommend this work, and would be interested in hearing any criticisms of its methodology from sociologists or social psychologists, especially if they can enrich its insights. Ultimately would be good to see this approach operationalized and more widely taught in the spirit of critical engagement and search for ways to improve the societies it describes.

Read this book to see how dominance appears to be inevitable and dominates every culture. Delve further to see how hierarchies permeate the fabric of US history- gender, race and social inequalities and the ways in which people legitimize these disparities. Well written, well theorized, great review of other theories, and well worth owning.

This book challenged the way I thought about human beings and social dominance. The author's theory is controversial but well argued and documented. I definitely recommend it.