The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues

The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues

'Uchitel' Publishing House, 2004
Edited by:
Leonid E. Grinin, Robert L. Carneiro, Dmitri M. Bondarenko, Nikolay N. Kradin, and Andrey V. Korotayev
ISBN: 5-7057-0547-6
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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.

Contents

Contents

Introduction (download)
Part I: Theory

1. Alternatives of Social Evolution (download)
Dmitri M. Bondarenko, Leonid E. Grinin, and Andrey V. Korotayev
2. Was the Chiefdom a Congelation of Ideas? (download)
Robert L. Carneiro
3. Beyond States and Empires: Chiefdoms and Informal Politics (download)
Patrick Chabal, Gary Feinman, and Peter Skalník
4. Alternative Models of Middle Range Society. ‘Individualistic’ Asia vs. ‘Collectivistic’ America? (download)
Yuri E. Berezkin
5. Was the State Inevitable? (download)
Henri J. M. Claessen
6. The Early State and Its Analogues: A Comparative Analysis (download)
Leonid E. Grinin

Part II: Early States

7. Early Dynastic Egypt: A Socio-Environmental/Anthropological Hypothesis of ‘Unification’ (download)
Dmitri B. Proussakov
8. The Ruler as Possessor of Power in Sumer (download)
Vladimir V. Emelianov
9. Ritual and Rationality: Religious Roots of the Bureaucratic State in Ancient China (download)
Richard Baum
10. Conquest Warfare, Strategies of Resistance, and the Rise of the Zapotec Early State (download)
Charles S. Spencer and Elsa M. Redmond
11. The Pristine Myth of the Pristine State in America (download)
Richard P. Schaedel and David G. Robinson
12. The Transition to Statehood in Central Europe (download)
Ludomir R. Lozny
13. Formation and Development of States in the Congo Basin (download)
Eleonora S. L'vova

Part III: Sedentary Alternatives and Analogues

14. The Chiefdom: Precursor of the Tribe? (Some Trends of Political Evolution in North-East Yemeni Highlands) (download)
Andrey V. Korotayev
15. From Local Communities to Megacommunity: Biniland in the 1st Millennium B.C. – 19th Century A.D. (download)
Dmitri M. Bondarenko
16. Greece: The Stateless Polis (11th– 4th Сenturies B.C.) (download)
Moshe Berent
17. Rome: Socio-political Evolution in the 8th– 2nd Centuries B.C. (download)
Dmitri V. Dozhdev
18. Early State and Democraсy (download)
Leonid E. Grinin

Part IV. Nomadic Alternatives and Analogues

19. Cultural Capital, Livestock Raiding, and the Military Advantage of Traditional Pastoralists (download)
William Irons
20. Nomads of the Eurasian Steppes in Historical Retrospective (download)
Anatoly M. Khazanov
21. Nomadic Empires in Evolutionary Perspective (download)
Nikolay N. Kradin
22. Mongolian Nomadic Society of the Empire Period (download)
Tatyana D. Skrynnikova


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