State and Society: The Emergence and Development of Social Hierarchy and Political Centralization

by Gledhill, J.

• ISBN13: 9780415122559
• ISBN10: 0415122554
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1995-12-20
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The traditional Eurocentric view of state formation and the rise of civilization is vigorously challeged in this unusually broad-ranging, up-to-date and innovative book. Using research from archaeology, ethnology, and anthropology, the authors examine the dynamics of political centralization, the nature of social inequalities, state formation, the nature of bureaucracy and the role of literacy in a variety of historical and geographical contexts. They examine the developments and resistences encountered in state formation and the mechanisms which produce cumulative development on a world-historical scale. United by a common committment to dialogue and to the idea that archaeology cannot exist in isolation from other social and historical sciences, this volume will be essential to all those working on issues of social inequality.

Table of Contents

List of contributors
Foreword
Preface
Introduction: the comparative analysis of social and political transitions	p. 1
Small fish in a big sea: geographical dispersion and sociopolitical centralization in the Marshall Islands	p. 33
Evolution, sequential hierarchy, and areal integration: the case of traditional Samoan society	p. 43
The Hawaiian transformation of Ancestral Polynesian Society: conceptualizing chiefly states	p. 57
State formation and uneven development	p. 77
Subsistence, social control of resources and the development of complex society in the Valley of Mexico	p. 91
Hierarchization in Maya segmentary states	p. 103
A cycle of development and decline in the early phases of civilization in Palestine: an analysis of the Intermediate Bronze Period (2200-2000 BC)	p. 113
Emerging towns in Benin and Ishan (Nigeria) AD 500-1500	p. 121
Control of resources in the medieval period	p. 137
Copper production and eastern Mediterranean trade: the rise of complex society on Cyprus	p. 149
Introduction: literacy and social complexity	p. 173
Literacy, social organization, and the archaeological record: the case of early Egypt	p. 192
Power and authority in Early Historic Scotland: Pictish symbol stones and other documents	p. 215
Literacy and power: the introduction and use of writing in Early Historic Scotland	p. 237
Inventions of writing	p. 253
Patrimonialism, involution, and the agrarian question in Java: a Weberian analysis of class relations and servile labour	p. 279
Legacies of empire: political centralization and class formation in the Hispanic-American world	p. 302
The centralization of education in Mexico: subordination and autonomy	p. 320
Index	p. 344
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