Download or read book The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations written by Max Weber and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2013-08-06 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Max Weber is widely recognized as the greatest of the founders of classical sociology. Yet whilst his thought is often associated with the development of capitalism in Western Europe or the analysis of modernity, Weber also had a profound scholarly interest in ancient societies and the Near East. The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations - Weber's neglected masterpiece which first appeared in German in 1897 and was reissued in 1909 - represents a fascinating and rigorous exercise to bring the newly-forged concepts of sociology to bear on civilizations as diverse as Mesopotamia and Egypt, Hebrew society in Israel, the city-states of classical Greece, the Hellenistic empire and, finally, republican and imperial Rome. Blending, throughout the work, description of socio-economic structures with investigation into mechanisms and causes of the rise and decline of social systems, the volume ends with a magisterial explanatory essay on the underlying reasons for the ultimate fall of the Roman Empire and, with it, of the close of Antiquity itself.
Download or read book The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations written by Max Weber and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2013-08-06 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Max Weber, widely recognized as the greatest of the founders of classical sociology, is often associated with the development of capitalism in Western Europe and the analysis of modernity. But he also had a profound scholarly interest in ancient societies and the Near East, and turned the youthful discipline of sociology to the study of these archaic cultures. The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations – Weber’s neglected masterpiece, first published in German in 1897 and reissued in 1909 – is a fascinating examination of the civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hebrew society in Israel, the city-states of classical Greece, the Hellenistic world and, finally, Republican and Imperial Rome. The book is infused with the excitement attendant when new intellectual tools are brought to bear on familiar subjects. Throughout the work, Weber blends a description of socio-economic structures with an investigation into mechanisms and causes in the rise and decline of social systems. The volume ends with a magisterial explanatory essay on the underlying reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire.
Download or read book Roman Agrarian History in Its Relation to Roman Public Civil Law written by Max Weber and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Ancient Economy written by Moses I. Finley and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1973 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Ancient Economy holds pride of place among the handful of genuinely influential works of ancient history. This is Finley at the height of his remarkable powers and in his finest role as historical iconoclast and intellectual provocateur. It should be required reading for every student of pre-modern modes of production, exchange, and consumption."--Josiah Ober, author of Political Dissent in Democratic Athens
Download or read book The Collapse of Complex Societies written by Joseph Tainter and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory.
Download or read book Capitalism and Modernity written by Derek Sayer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-11-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2004. The nature of modernity, and its connection with capitalism, are questions at the forefront of contemporary sociological debate. Derek Sayer re-examines the answers given by Karl Marx and Max Weber, authors of two of the most profound sociological critiques of modernity. His reassessment of Marx and Weber on capitalism and modernity provides a new reading which reveals the remarkable consonances between their sociologies of the modern condition. Going beyond the well-known stereotypes of ‘the Marx-Weber debate’, Professor Sayer shows that both Marx and Weber produced a challenging critique of the nature of power and subjectivity in modern society, a critique which retains all its intellectual force and moral relevance today. A major work of original scholarship, Capitalism and Modernity is clearly and accessibly written. It is an authoritative and provocative commentary on a debate central to modern sociology and politics and will be a key text in social theory for students of sociology, politics and philosophy.
Download or read book Ancient Mesopotamia written by A. Leo Oppenheim and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-01-31 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This splendid work of scholarship . . . sums up with economy and power all that the written record so far deciphered has to tell about the ancient and complementary civilizations of Babylon and Assyria."—Edward B. Garside, New York Times Book Review Ancient Mesopotamia—the area now called Iraq—has received less attention than ancient Egypt and other long-extinct and more spectacular civilizations. But numerous small clay tablets buried in the desert soil for thousands of years make it possible for us to know more about the people of ancient Mesopotamia than any other land in the early Near East. Professor Oppenheim, who studied these tablets for more than thirty years, used his intimate knowledge of long-dead languages to put together a distinctively personal picture of the Mesopotamians of some three thousand years ago. Following Oppenheim's death, Erica Reiner used the author's outline to complete the revisions he had begun. "To any serious student of Mesopotamian civilization, this is one of the most valuable books ever written."—Leonard Cottrell, Book Week "Leo Oppenheim has made a bold, brave, pioneering attempt to present a synthesis of the vast mass of philological and archaeological data that have accumulated over the past hundred years in the field of Assyriological research."—Samuel Noah Kramer, Archaeology A. Leo Oppenheim, one of the most distinguished Assyriologists of our time, was editor in charge of the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute and John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago.
Download or read book Collapse written by Jared Diamond and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-03-21 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive is a visionary study of the mysterious downfall of past civilizations. Now in a revised edition with a new afterword, Jared Diamond's Collapse uncovers the secret behind why some societies flourish, while others founder - and what this means for our future. What happened to the people who made the forlorn long-abandoned statues of Easter Island? What happened to the architects of the crumbling Maya pyramids? Will we go the same way, our skyscrapers one day standing derelict and overgrown like the temples at Angkor Wat? Bringing together new evidence from a startling range of sources and piecing together the myriad influences, from climate to culture, that make societies self-destruct, Jared Diamond's Collapse also shows how - unlike our ancestors - we can benefit from our knowledge of the past and learn to be survivors. 'A grand sweep from a master storyteller of the human race' - Daily Mail 'Riveting, superb, terrifying' - Observer 'Gripping ... the book fulfils its huge ambition, and Diamond is the only man who could have written it' - Economis 'This book shines like all Diamond's work' - Sunday Times
Download or read book Family and Civilization written by Carle C. Zimmerman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-05-02 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Family and Civilization, the distinguished Harvard sociologist Carle Zimmerman demonstrates the close and causal connections between the rise and fall of different types of families and the rise and fall of civilizations, particularly ancient Greece and Rome, medieval and modern Europe, and the United States. Zimmerman traces the evolution of family structure from tribes and clans to extended and large nuclear families to the smaller, often broken families of today. And he shows the consequences of each structure for bearing and rearing of children, for religion, law, and everyday life, and for the fate of civilization itself. Originally published in 1947, this compelling analysis predicted many of today's controversies and trends concerning youth violence and depression, abortion, and homosexuality, the demographic collapse of the West, and the displacement of peoples. This new edition has been edited and abridged by James Kurth of Swarthmore College. It includes essays on the text by Kurth and Bryce Christensen and an introduction by Allan C. Carlson.
Download or read book A History of World Agriculture written by Marcel Mazoyer and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2006-06-01 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Only once we understand the long history of human efforts to draw sustenance from the land can we grasp the nature of the crisis that faces humankind today, as hundreds of millions of people are faced with famine or flight from the land. From Neolithic times through the earliest civilizations of the ancient Near East, in savannahs, river valleys and the terraces created by the Incas in the Andean mountains, an increasing range of agricultural techniques have developed in response to very different conditions. These developments are recounted in this book, with detailed attention to the ways in which plants, animals, soil, climate, and society have interacted. Mazoyer and Roudart’s A History of World Agriculture is a path-breaking and panoramic work, beginning with the emergence of agriculture after thousands of years in which human societies had depended on hunting and gathering, showing how agricultural techniques developed in the different regions of the world, and how this extraordinary wealth of knowledge, tradition and natural variety is endangered today by global capitialism, as it forces the unequal agrarian heritages of the world to conform to the norms of profit. During the twentieth century, mechanization, motorization and specialization have brought to a halt the pattern of cultural and environmental responses that characterized the global history of agriculture until then. Today a small number of corporations have the capacity to impose the farming methods on the planet that they find most profitable. Mazoyer and Roudart propose an alternative global strategy that can safegaurd the economies of the poor countries, reinvigorate the global economy, and create a livable future for mankind.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Weber written by Stephen Turner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-04-13 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Max Weber is indubitably one of the very greatest figures in the history of the social sciences, the source of seminal concepts like 'the Protestant Ethic', 'charisma' and the idea of historical processes of 'rationalization'. But, like his great forebears Adam Smith and Karl Marx, Weber's work always resists easy categorisation. Prominent as a founding father of sociology, Weber has been a major influence in the study of ancient history, religion, economics, law and, more recently, cultural studies. This Cambridge Companion provides an authoritative introduction to the major facets of his thought, including several (like industrial psychology) which have hitherto been neglected. A distinguished international team of contributors examines some of the major controversies that have erupted over Weber's specialized work, and shows how the issues have developed since he wrote. The articles demonstrate Weber's impact on a variety of research areas.
Download or read book Max Weber on Capitalism Bureaucracy and Religion written by Stanislav Andreski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For this important selection from Weber, sections of text from Weber's major works (Gesammelte, Aufsatze Zur Religionssoziologie, including The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; General Economic History; and The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilisations) have been carefully edited and substantially translated to form a coherent and integrated volume. Professor Andreski's aim has been to use Weber's own works to explain crucial turns in the evolution of societies and cultures, while eliminating the difficulties of language and frequent mistranslation which have previously made Weber so difficult and baffling for students new to his work. An essay by Andreski introduces the selections, which are centred on Weber's principal interest, the relationship between capitalism, religion and bureaucracy. He seeks to correct those misinterpretations of Weber's work which have stressed his classification, rather than his attempts to theorise and explain social phenomena on the basis of a comparitive analysis of universal historical trends. This book was first published in 1983.
Download or read book The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in HIstorical Outline written by D D Kosambi and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-09-01 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1965, The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline is a strikingly original work, the first real cultural history of India. The main features of the Indian character are traced back into remote antiquity as the natural outgrowth of historical process. Did the change from food gathering and the pastoral life to agriculture make new religions necessary? Why did the Indian cities vanish with hardly a trace and leave no memory? Who were the Aryans – if any? Why should Buddhism, Jainism, and so many other sects of the same type come into being at one time and in the same region? How could Buddhism spread over so large a part of Asia while dying out completely in the land of its origin? What caused the rise and collapse of the Magadhan empire; was the Gupta empire fundamentally different from its great predecessor, or just one more ‘oriental despotism’? These are some of the many questions handled with great insight, yet in the simplest terms, in this stimulating work. This book will be of interest to students of history, sociology, archaeology, anthropology, cultural studies, South Asian studies and ethnic studies.
Download or read book Revolutions a Very Short Introduction written by Jack A. Goldstone and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the 20th and 21st century revolutions have become more urban, often less violent, but also more frequent and more transformative of the international order. Whether it is the revolutions against Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR; the "color revolutions" across Asia, Europe and North Africa; or the religious revolutions in Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria; today's revolutions are quite different from those of the past. Modern theories of revolution have therefore replaced the older class-based theories with more varied, dynamic, and contingent models of social and political change. This new edition updates the history of revolutions, from Classical Greece and Rome to the Revolution of Dignity in the Ukraine, with attention to the changing types and outcomes of revolutionary struggles. It also presents the latest advances in the theory of revolutions, including the issues of revolutionary waves, revolutionary leadership, international influences, and the likelihood of revolutions to come. This volume provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to the nature of revolutions and their role in global history"--
Download or read book Dirt written by David R. Montgomery and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-05-14 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.
Download or read book Antiquity and Capitalism written by John R. Love and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-09-27 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ambitious book addresses questions concerning an old theme - the rise and fall of ancient civilization - but does so from a distinctive theoretical perspective by taking its lead from the work of the great German sociologist Max Weber.
Download or read book A Companion to Ancient Agriculture written by David Hollander and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book-length overview of agricultural development in the ancient world A Companion to Ancient Agriculture is an authoritative overview of the history and development of agriculture in the ancient world. Focusing primarily on the Near East and Mediterranean regions, this unique text explores the cultivation of the soil and rearing of animals through centuries of human civilization—from the Neolithic beginnings of agriculture to Late Antiquity. Chapters written by the leading scholars in their fields present a multidisciplinary examination of the agricultural methods and influences that have enabled humans to survive and prosper. Consisting of thirty-one chapters, the Companion presents essays on a range of topics that include economic-political, anthropological, zooarchaeological, ethnobotanical, and archaeobotanical investigation of ancient agriculture. Chronologically-organized chapters offer in-depth discussions of agriculture in Bronze Age Egypt and Mesopotamia, Hellenistic Greece and Imperial Rome, Iran and Central Asia, and other regions. Sections on comparative agricultural history discuss agriculture in the Indian subcontinent and prehistoric China while an insightful concluding section helps readers understand ancient agriculture from a modern perspective. Fills the need for a full-length biophysical and social overview of ancient agriculture Provides clear accounts of the current state of research written by experts in their respective areas Places ancient Mediterranean agriculture in conversation with contemporary practice in Eastern and Southern Asia Includes coverage of analysis of stable isotopes in ancient agricultural cultivation Offers plentiful illustrations, references, case studies, and further reading suggestions A Companion to Ancient Agriculture is a much-needed resource for advanced students, instructors, scholars, and researchers in fields such as agricultural history, ancient economics, and in broader disciplines including classics, archaeology, and ancient history.
