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Our early ancestors lived in small groups and worked actively to preserve social equality. As they created larger societies, however, inequality rose, and by 2500 bce truly egalitarian societies were on the wane. In The Creation of Inequality, Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus demonstrate that this development was not simply the result of population increase, food surplus, or the accumulation of valuables. Instead, inequality resulted from conscious manipulation of the unique social logic that lies at the core of every human group.
A few societies allowed talented and ambitious individuals to rise in prestige while still preventing them from becoming a hereditary elite. But many others made high rank hereditary, by manipulating debts, genealogies, and sacred lore. At certain moments in history, intense competition among leaders of high rank gave rise to despotic kingdoms and empires in the Near East, Egypt, Africa, Mexico, Peru, and the Pacific.
Drawing on their vast knowledge of both living and prehistoric social groups, Flannery and Marcus describe the changes in logic that create larger and more hierarchical societies, and they argue persuasively that many kinds of inequality can be overcome by reversing these changes, rather than by violence.
- Sales Rank: #212396 in Books
- Published on: 2014-10-06
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.13" h x 1.51" w x 5.72" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 648 pages
Review
The origin of inequality is one of the most basic questions about human societies. We all arose from egalitarian hunter/gatherer ancestors. Why, then, do almost all of us poor peasants now tolerate affluent leaders, whether they are democratically elected presidents or military dictators? In this clear, readable survey, the distinguished archaeologists Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus extract the answers by comparing the histories of societies over the whole world for the last 10,000 years. This book will become the standard account of long-term political evolution. (Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography at UCLA and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse)
By carefully articulating and integrating archaeological and ethnographic data, Flannery and Marcus present a panoramic view of the development of particular cultures in various parts of the world. Moreover, in selecting case studies the authors have gone beyond the familiar examples so often cited in anthropology textbooks. The Creation of Inequality promises to be a landmark work. (Robert L. Carneiro, Ph.D., Curator Emeritus and Professor Emeritus, Anthropology, Richard Gilder Graduate School at the American Museum of Natural History)
Flannery and Marcus are two of the most distinguished anthropological archaeologists in the world. The Creation of Inequality distills two lifetimes of work on the origin and evolution of complex societies throughout the ancient world. This work brings much of this together in an eminently readable and fascinating way. (Charles S. Stanish, Ph.D., Director, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, and Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles)
This provocative work, likely to become an important contribution to the literature of social and political anthropology, will be of interest both to scholars in the field and to anthropology and archaeology enthusiasts seeking understanding of the development and perpetuation of inequality in human societies. (Elizabeth Salt Library Journal 2012-06-01)
Extraordinarily erudite...It would be an excellent addition to collections on the rise of civilization or on how to use the data gathered by cultural anthropologists and archaeologists to understand broad patterns of social change. Professionals in the field will also benefit from this tour de force by two of archaeology's most provocative scholars. (L. L. Johnson Choice 2012-11-01)
Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus have done a remarkable job in synthesizing the two key disciplines of social anthropology and archaeology, and their book represents a significant advance in our understanding of the evolution of complex societies. (Peter Turchin Times Literary Supplement 2013-03-08)
This is a work of profound importance...[It] yields insights into a multitude of societies
in the recent and prehistoric past...Flannery and Marcus's magnum opus...[This] is a deeply impressive achievement.
(Steven Mithen London Review of Books 2013-04-11)
About the Author
Kent Flannery is James B. Griffin Distinguished University Professor of Anthropological Archaeology and Curator of Human Ecology and Archaeobiology at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, University of Michigan.
Joyce Marcus is Robert L. Carneiro Distinguished University Professor of Social Evolution and Curator of Latin American Archaeology at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, University of Michigan.
Most helpful customer reviews
54 of 63 people found the following review helpful.
Read Christopher Boehm first
By S. Walsh
If you want to read a serious discussion of the issue of inequality in human society, start with Boehm's excellent Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior. Boehm focuses on foraging societies, and I suspect "The Creation of Inequality" is meant partly to serve as a companion or response to Hierarchy, with a greater historical sweep but unfortunately without as solid a theoretical foundation. Even if you disagree with Boehm, you'll at least have a basic framework for understanding the issues, rather than the simplistic and outdated generalizations provided by Creation.
What Creation does do well is provide a fascinating wealth of anthropological and archaeological information on the social organization of a huge array of prehistoric, historic, and present-day societies, with a focus on cultural factors. The authors do a fine job of comparing and contrasting societies and describing the processes by which inequality grows. Unfortunately, for a book that's supposedly directed at the general reader, there's an overwhelming amount of detail - be prepared to skim quite a bit, you'll still be able to follow the main points. If you're lucky you'll also avoid the feeble attempts at humor scattered here and there.
While the authors can be congratulated on the breadth and detail of their survey, their discussion of the material is disappointing. One major weakness is that Creation lacks much of an explanation for why some societies remain relatively egalitarian, some become highly stratified, and some cycle between more and less unequal social and political institutions. The authors say at one point that it's because some of our ancestors simply lacked the "resolve" to resist inequality! Because they reject "environmental" in favor of "social" explanations - as if these approaches were in opposition, rather than complementary - they only allude in passing to the correlation between increasing population densities, intensified resource use, and increased stratification, though this relationship is obvious from their examples. Larger, more complex societies aren't necessarily more unequal - modern democracies, while hardly egalitarian, are less unequal than many simpler societies - but the processes that protect us from greater stratification are very different than those that work in simple foraging societies where people deal with each other face-to-face. Because the authors don't seem to want to acknowledge this, the best prescription for avoiding inequality they can come up with is a half-joking recommendation to "Put hunters and gatherers in charge" (oh, the irony!).
The 18th-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau appears throughout the book as an unimpeachable authority, even though most general readers won't have more than a passing acquaintance with his work and the authors offer no defense for choosing his theories over others. Many of Rousseau's ideas are still attractive, but that hardly makes his social philosophy the best on offer in the 21st century. For example, the authors apparently cling to the discredited notion that there's an original "Natural Man" beneath the veneer imposed by society. But having to live according to social rules is a major, possibly *the* major, distinguishing feature of humankind - nature and culture, like genes and environment, are inextricably intertwined. You can't strip away corrupt culture and start over with "Natural Law," whatever that is.
Much of the carelessly written final chapter is a hodgepodge of half-baked opinions and misleading rhetoric. The authors state that they're avoiding a "long, ponderous chapter" on theory to spare the reader, but they're really sparing themselves the effort of thoughtfully engaging with their subject, instead just rehashing many of the questionable assertions that pepper earlier chapters. Here's their advice on "resisting inequality":
"So the next time a pampered star tells you that his last film made him $20 million, tell him which charity to give it to. Then explain that you have not actually seen the film, but that you and your dog have discovered that the DVD makes a great Frisbee."
These are the final sentences in the book - maybe they were just tired and behind deadline.
If you're primarily interested in reading about the history and prehistory of nonmodern societies, you'll probably enjoy The Creation of Inequality. If you're looking for insight into the forces driving social change, you may be disappointed, as I was. If you object to unsupported opinions masquerading as profound observations, you'll be irritated. Still, I might have given the book another star if the authors weren't "distinguished professors" and the reviews weren't so gushing, but as it is I feel I was misled into expecting a better book.
31 of 38 people found the following review helpful.
Best book of 2012
By Laura
I didn't buy this book on Amazon but I wanted to write a review because it was the best non-fiction book I have read in a very, very long time. (And I love non-fiction.)
I checked out the book from a library because I passed by it on the shelf and the cover and title intrigued me. I figured I would just leaf through it. Oh how mistaken I was. All of a sudden I was 200 pages in and impatient to finish it. I read it in the mornings, in the evenings, on my work breaks. The book holds many fascinating details of cultures past and present, and gives a wonderfully informed view of humanity as a whole. It is rare for a book to be able to accomplish all this in so few pages. A few months have passed since I read it and I am still thinking about its message.
In addition to the content, another thing that makes this book great is the writing. I feel the authors have ruined my ability to read other social studies, history, or even science books. I have come to treasure their use of humor throughout the book. They have set the bar high and sadly, no authors I have read since have been able to compare with these two. Even if you don't know anything about history or anthropology, you will be able to understand this book. (Beginners might find the details about archeological sites a bit too much but I would ask them to keep on going because these authors are remarkably accessible compared to the vast majority of other archeology writers. Also, if you need to skip a few pages here and there, you can still get the main history.)
This is a book I will come back to again and again, both in my thoughts and reading time. I will no doubt purchase this item at full price so that I can support these brilliant authors.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Very Interesting; 4.5 Stars
By R. Albin
The authors, like me, are faculty at the Unversity of Michigan. We are not in the same unit and I don't know the authors socially.
The authors of this very interesting book are 2 prominent archaeologists who spent their careers studying the emergence of state-level societies. Flannerey and Marcus describe how stratified societies emerged from egalitarian foragers following the end of the last Ice Age. Their method is to study ethnographic and historical accounts of human societies at varying levels of stratification to identify distinctive social features of these societies and their physical correlates. The latter are used to identify the social features in archaeological studies and allow historical-sequential reconstruction. Much of the book is devoted to providing a substantial number of examples of these analyses. There is a lot of very interesting detail contained in the descriptions of ethnographic and archaeological studies.
The sequence that Flannery & Marcus reconstruct starts with foragers of the last Ice Age. With a warming climate and more favorable conditions, more food resources became available, often in a "delayed return" strategy in which human efforts to increase foraging resources were potential precursors of sedentism and agriculture. In many cases, these efforts led, over considerable time, to domestication of new food resources and agricultural societies. This led to the formation of "achievement societies" in which individuals, generally men with talents, charisma, and drive could attain leading to dominating positions in their societies. These societies did not usually exhibit hereditary privilege and had mechanisms to prevent hereditary stratification. Flannery & Marcus are careful to point out societies, like those of the Pacific Northwest where this occurred without agriculture. Under some circumstances, achievement societies would develop into "rank" societies with inherited privilege, often focused on single lineages. Rank societies could then aggregate into kingdoms and kingdoms into early empires.
This is not a teleological scheme. Flannery & Marcus stress that each stage can exhibit some equilibrium. Achievement and Rank societies can cycle between these 2 conditions. Flannery & Marcus describe the transitions between stages and some of the mechanisms, which often appear to be driven by forms of competition and emulation among societies and elites. Technological innovations, warfare, and the highly contingent roles of charismatic individuals appear to be important in transitions. Flannery & Marcus stress the roles of religion and cosmologies in providing legitimacy and social cement for differentiating societies.
Written for a general audience, this book contains more than enough scholarly detail to be useful to historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists, but the text is generally quite accessible and useful for general readers. The bibliography is useful. There are some minor defects. Flannery & Marcus don't include an analytic overview that summarizes their scheme. Some additional hypotheses about forces driving stage transitions would have been interesting. Finally, implicit in much of the discussion is a view of human behavior which sees humans, particularly men, as having a significant impulse to domination. In egalitarian forager societies, this is restrained by material circumstances and active efforts of these societies. Flannery & Marcus suggest also that in many societies, social stratification is essentially displaced into cosmology with elements of such stratification returning in more complex societies via religious mechanisms. This is quite interesting but not discussed explicitly.
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