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  3. Themes in the Social Sciences

The purpose of this series is to publish discussions that will interest anthropologists, sociologists, demographers, and those economists, historians and political scientists who are concerned with issues outside of the conventional limits of their disciplines. Both theoretical and empirical, and often comparative, this series publishes books on a range of diverse societies, which will be useful teaching tools for advanced undergraduates and graduates.

  • General Editors: Jack Goody, Geoffrey Hawthorn, John Dunn

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13 results in Themes in the Social Sciences

The Economics of the Long Period
  • Gregory Ponthiere
  • Published online:
    11 August 2022
    Print publication:
    25 August 2022
  • This book provides a non-technical introduction to Unified Growth Theory (UGT), that is, the study of history as a succession of economic regimes. It first focuses on the canonical example of regime shift: the transition from the regime of Malthusian stagnation to the modern regime of sustained economic growth. Then, it broadens the perspectives on historical change by examining other regime shifts involving institutional and environmental forces. This book fills a gap in the market by providing a more accessible treatment of UGT and invites readers to explore ideas of continuity and discontinuity in history.

Environment, Subsistence and System
  • The Ecology of Small-Scale Social Formations
  • Roy Ellen
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    30 September 1982
  • Human ecology is ultimately part of a general theory of society. This is the argument developed here by Roy Ellen, whose exploration of the interplay between social organization and ecology in small-scale subsistence systems has direct bearings both on the investigation of human environmental relations in general and on contemporary social theory. He argues that while ecological study of non-industrial societies cannot be elevated to the status of theory, domain or discipline, it can be represented as a single 'problematic' that historically has acquired some degree of autonomy and which continues to make a significant contribution to a wider anthropology. Dr Ellen introduces his subject matter through an extended and systematic discussion of some major frameworks developed within the last hundred years to examine and explain facets of the relationship between culture, social organization and the environment: determinism, possibilism, cultural ecology, systems theory and ideas derived from modern biology. He follows this with a detailed review and appraisal of important recent research involving the use of ecological models, methods and data. This original and innovative study of the pre-eminently social character of human ecological relations will be of considerable interest to all students and researchers concerned with understanding the nature of the relationship between human beings and their environments.

Old Age
  • Constructions and Deconstructions
  • Haim Hazan
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    28 April 1994
  • Haim Hazan is a leading specialist on old age in anthropology, and has published several books on particular communities of old people. The latest book is an essay on the realities of old age, as it is experienced, as opposed to the ideas about the old current in western societies. It argues that the construction of this world by outsiders is inevitably affected by deeply ingrained social attitudes and structures, such as the spatial segregation of the aged as a population, and the fear of death with which they are associated. By approaching the subject from the social constructionist perspective, and by drawing on a variety of detailed ethnographic accounts, the author describes a unique and nuanced social world. This is a sophisticated and original book, which should have a significant impact on a field still dominated by a 'social problems' approach.

Cooking, Cuisine and Class
  • A Study in Comparative Sociology
  • Jack Goody
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    24 June 1982
  • The preparation, serving and eating of food are common features of all human societies, and have been the focus of study for numerous anthropologists - from Sir James Frazer onwards - from a variety of theoretical and empirical perspectives. It is in the context of this previous anthropological work that Jack Goody sets his own observations on cooking in West Africa. He criticises those approaches which overlook the comparative historical dimension of culinary, and other, cultural differences that emerge in class societies, both of which elements he particularly emphasises in this book. The central question that Professor Goody addresses here is why a differentiated 'haute cuisine' has not emerged in Africa, as it has in other parts of the world. His account of cooking in West Africa is followed by a survey of the culinary practices of the major Eurasian societies throughout history - ranging from Ancient Egypt, Imperial Rome and medieval China to early modern Europe - in which he relates the differences in food preparation and consumption emerging in these societies to differences in their socio-economic structures, specifically in modes of production and communication. He concludes with an examination of the world-wide rise of 'industrial food' and its impact on Third World societies, showing that the ability of the latter to resist cultural domination in food, as in other things, is related to the nature of their pre-existing socio-economic structures. The arguments presented here will interest all social scientists and historians concerned with cultural history and social theory.

Culture and Communication
  • The Logic by which Symbols Are Connected. An Introduction to the Use of Structuralist Analysis in Social Anthropology
  • Edmund Leach
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    26 March 1976
  • Edmund Leach's book investigates the writings of 'structuralists,' and their different theories: the general incest theory and of animal sacrifice. This book is designed for the use of teaching undergraduates in anthropology, linguistics, literary studies, philosophy and related disciplines faced with structuralist argument. It provides the prolegomena necessary to understand the final chapter of Levi-Strauss's massive four-volume Mythologiques. Some prior knowledge of anthropological literature is useful but not essential. The principal ethnographic source is the Book of Leviticus; this guide should help anyone who is trying to grasp the essentials of 'seminology' - the general theory of how signs and symbols come to convey meaning. The author's core thesis is that: 'the indices in non-verbal communication systems, like the sound elements in spoken language, do not have meaning as isolates, but only as members of set'; the book's special merit is that it makes this kind of jargon comprehensible in terms of our everyday experience.

The Politics of Socialism
  • An Essay in Political Theory
  • John Dunn
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    04 October 1984
  • 'Why do any human beings choose to be socialists? Why has socialist politics proved in practice so frequently disappointing? How far can socialist ideas still serve to inform and guide political judgement in modern states for the better? Are the evident weaknesses of socialist politics in all its varieties likely to lead to its disappearance from modern political activity in the readily imaginable future?' These are the questions John Dunn faces in this book, offering an appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of socialism as a political theory. Its strengths, he argues, will always lie in its hostility to the manifest injustices of capitalist property relations. But its weaknesses stem from an inadequate and disingenuous conception of political power and political action, and from the widespread failures of socialist economic planning. Dunn goes on to examine how these failings might be remedied or minimized, given the options available from present conditions and the history of socialist politics. The conclusions of his analysis are not optimistic: the future for socialism will not be a comfortable one. But, he says, an honest recognition of the real problems that exist and an understanding of their causes is the only way of renewing confidence in socialism's promises of democracy and material security. This book is an attempt to confront problems which have arisen largely from the practice of socialist politics itself and to locate their sources within the confusions and equivocations of existing understandings of socialism.

Patrons, Clients and Friends
  • Interpersonal Relations and the Structure of Trust in Society
  • S. N. Eisenstadt, Luis Roniger
  • Published online:
    01 June 2011
    Print publication:
    18 October 1984
  • The form of social relations described by the terms 'patronage' and 'patron-client relations' is of central concern to sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists today. Characterised by its voluntary and highly personal but often fully institutionalised nature, it is a type of behaviour found in almost every human society. It touches upon basic aspects of the construction and regulation of social order and is therefore closely connected to major theoretical problems and controversies in the social sciences. This book analyses some special types of these interpersonal relations - ritual kinship, patron-client relations and friendship - and the social conditions in which they develop. The authors draw upon a wide range of examples, from societies as diverse as these of the Mediterranean, Latin America, the Middle and Far East and the U.S.S.R., in their study of the core characteristics of such relationships. They look at them as mechanisms of social exchange, examine their impact on the institutional structures in which they exist, and assess the significance of the variations in their occurrence. Their analysis highlights the importance of these relationships in social life and concludes with a stimulating discussion of the ensuring tensions and ambivalences and the ways in which these are dealt with - though perhaps never fully overcome. Patrons, clients and friends is the first systematic comparative study of these interpersonal relations and makes the first attempt to relate them to central aspects of social structure. It will therefore be an important contribution to both comparative analysis and social theory and will be of interest to a wide range of social scientists.

How Societies Remember
  • Paul Connerton
  • Published online:
    04 August 2010
    Print publication:
    25 August 1989
  • In treating memory as a cultural rather than an individual faculty, this book provides an account of how bodily practices are transmitted in, and as, traditions. Most studies of memory as a cultural faculty focus on written, or inscribed transmissions of memories. Paul Connerton, on the other hand, concentrates on bodily (or incorporated) practices, and so questions the currently dominant idea that literary texts may be taken as a metaphor for social practices generally. The author argues that images of the past and recollected knowledge of the past are conveyed and sustained by ritual performances and that performative memory is bodily. Bodily social memory is an essential aspect of social memory, but it is an aspect which has until now been badly neglected. An innovative study, this work should be of interest to researchers into social, political and anthropological thought as well as to graduate and undergraduate students.

The Principles of Representative Government
  • Bernard Manin
  • Published online:
    08 March 2010
    Print publication:
    28 February 1997
  • The thesis of this original and provocative book is that representative government should be understood as a combination of democratic and undemocratic, aristocratic elements. Professor Manin challenges the conventional view that representative democracy is no more than an indirect form of government by the people, in which citizens elect representatives only because they cannot assemble and govern in person. The argument is developed by examining the historical moments when the present institutional arrangements were chosen from among the then available alternatives. Professor Manin reminds us that while today representative institutions and democracy appear as virtually indistinguishable, when representative government was first established in Europe and America, it was designed in opposition to democracy proper. Drawing on the procedures used in earlier republican systems, from classical Athens to Renaissance Florence, in order to highlight the alternatives that were forsaken, Manin brings to the fore the generally overlooked results of representative mechanisms. These include the elitist aspect of elections and the non-binding character of campaign promises.

Historical Anthropology of the Family
  • Martine Segalen
  • Translated by J. C. Whitehouse, Sarah Matthews
  • Published online:
    14 January 2010
    Print publication:
    28 November 1986
  • This historical anthropology of the family represents a new departure in family studies. Over the past ten years or so, the social scientific sociological analysis of the family has undergone a change, and has been obliged to reconsider its traditional view that industrialisation triggered a shift within society from the 'large family', which fulfilled all social functions from socialising the children to caring for the sick and the old, to the modern nuclear family, which was regarded solely as being the locus for emotional relationships. Historians have shown that in the past there was in fact a great variety of different family structures within a wide range of varying demographic, economic and cultural frameworks, distinctive for each society. At the same time, the interaction between sociology and social anthropology has led to a clearer conceptual analysis of that vague, polysemic term 'family'; and notions of dwelling-place, descent, marriage, the relative roles of husband and wife and parent-child relations, as well as the more general relations between generations, have in a variety of past and present social contexts been taken apart and analysed. In this book, Martine Segalen reviews and synthesises a rich wealth of often little-known European and North American historical and social anthropological material on the family. This results in a reversal of the frequently held view of the family as an institution in decline, showing it instead to be both dynamic and resistant.

Demystifying Mentalities
  • Geoffrey Ernest Richard Lloyd
  • Published online:
    07 January 2010
    Print publication:
    31 August 1990
  • If faraway peoples have different ideas from our own, is this because they have different mentalities? Did our remote ancestors lack logic? The notion of distinct mentalities has been used extensively by historians to describe and explain cultural diversity. Professor Lloyd rejects this psychologising talk of mentalities and proposes an alternative approach, which takes as its starting point the social contexts of communication. Discussing apparently irrational beliefs and behaviour (such as magic), he shows how different forms of thought coexist in a single culture but within conventionally defined contexts.

Aping Language
  • Joel Wallman
  • Published online:
    03 November 2009
    Print publication:
    15 October 1992
  • Language is regarded, at least in most intellectual traditions, as the quintessential human attribute, at once evidence and source of most that is considered transcendent in us, distinguishing ours from the merely mechanical nature of the beast. Even if language did not have the sacrosanct status it does in our conception of human nature, however, the question of its presence in other species would still promote argument, for we lack any universally accepted, defining features of language, ones that would allow us to identify it unequivocally ours from other species and contention over the crucial attributes of language are responsible for the stridency of the debate over whether nonhuman animals can learn language. Aping Language is a critical assessment of each of the recent experiments designed to impact a language, either natural or invented, to an ape. The performance of the animals in these experiments is compared with the course of semantic and syntactic development in children, both speaking and signing. The book goes on to examine what is known about the neurological, cognitive, and specifically linguistic attributes of our species that subserve language, and it discusses how they might have come into existence. Finally, the communication of nonhuman primates in nature is assayed to consider whether or not it was reasonable to assume, as the experimenters in these projects did, that apes possess an ability to acquire language.

A Pack of Lies
  • Towards a Sociology of Lying
  • J. A. Barnes
  • Published online:
    29 August 2009
    Print publication:
    09 June 1994
  • Defining lies as statements that are intended to deceive, this book considers the contexts in which people tell lies, how they are detected and sometimes exposed, and the consequences for the liars themselves, their dupes, and the wider society. The author provides examples from a number of cultures with distinctive religious and ethical traditions, and delineates domains where lying is the norm, domains that are ambiguous and the one domain (science) that requires truthtelling. He refers to experimental studies on children that show how, at an early age, they acquire the capactiy to lie and learn when it is appropriate to do so. He reviews how lying has been evaluated by moralists, examines why we do not regard novels as lies and relates the human capacity to lie to deceit among other animal species. He concludes that although there are, in all societies, good pragmatic reasons for not lying all the time, there are also strong reasons for lying some of the time.