Social Transformations

In Social Transformations: A General Theory of Historical Development Stephen K. Sanderson develops a general theory of social evolution and uses it to explain the most important evolutionary transformations in human history and prehistory. In this expanded edition Sanderson has added a discussion of the biological constraints acting on humans that have helped to push social evolution along strikingly similar lines throughout the world. The new discussion places the theoretical arguments of Social Transformations in the context of an even more comprehensive theory of human social behavior. Booknews Continues the work Sanderson (sociology, Indiana U. of Pennsylvania) began with his 1990 by outlining an evolutionary interpretation of world history that he calls evolutionary materialism. He focuses on what appears to him the most important transformations in human history: the neolithic revolution, the origin of civilization and the state, and the transition from feudalism to capitalism that ushered in the modern world in western Europe and Japan. To the first edition, for which he mentions no date, he has appended an abbreviated account of how the theory can incorporate biological constraints; he intends to treat that more fully in the future. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)