Power Requires Others

doi:10.1017/9781009042826.005

Four - Power Requires Others

“Institutional Realities” and the Significance of Individual Power in Late Prehistoric Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2021

David Fontijn

Edited by

T. L. Thurston and

Manuel Fernández-Götz

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T. L. Thurston: Affiliation:
University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Manuel Fernández-Götz: Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh

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Summary

Dealing with the deep past of Europe in the end always means dealing with ourselves in the present. The study of European prehistory tacitly, but sometimes also explicitly, ends up with statements on the now. Were certain developments in prehistoric society essential to the human condition of the present? Trying to deal with such a question means acknowledging the significance of what Chakrabarty (2009: 212) calls “deep history.” As Morris (2011: 22) puts it, it involves taking every phase in the longue durée seriously and seeing one development as necessarily building on what came before. To a great extent, this is where the relevance of the study of the past for the present lies.

Type: Chapter
Information: Power from Below in Premodern Societies
The Dynamics of Political Complexity in the Archaeological Record
, pp. 90 - 105

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009042826.005 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2021

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