The creation of inequality [electronic resource] : how our prehistoric ancestors set the stage for monarchy, slavery, and empire / Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus.
Flannery, Kent V.; Marcus, Joyce.
2012
GN740 .F54 2012eb
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Title The creation of inequality [electronic resource] : how our prehistoric ancestors set the stage for monarchy, slavery, and empire / Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus.
Author Flannery, Kent V.
ISBN 9780674064973 electronic book
0674064690
9780674064690
Imprint Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012.
Language English
Description 1 online resource (xiii, 631 p.) : ill., maps.
Call Number GN740 .F54 2012eb
Dewey Decimal Classification 569.9
Summary Overview: 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.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description Description based on print version record.
Added Author Marcus, Joyce.
Available in Other Form Creation of inequality.
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Preface
Part 1: Starting Out Equal:
1: Genesis and exodus
2: Rousseau's "state of nature"
3: Ancestors and enemies
4: Why our ancestors had religion and the arts
5: Inequality without agriculture
Part 2: Balancing Prestige And Equality:
6: Agriculture and achieved renown
7: Ritual buildings of achievement-based societies
8: Prehistory of the ritual house
9: Prestige and equality in four Native American societies
Part 3: Societies That Made Inequality Hereditary:
10: Rise and fall of hereditary inequality in farming societies
11: Three sources of power in chiefly societies
12: From ritual house to temple in the Americas
13: Aristocracy without chiefs
14: Temples and inequality in early Mesopotamia
15: Chiefly societies in our backyard
16: How to turn rank into stratification: tales of the South Pacific
Part 4: Inequality In Kingdoms And Empires:
17: How to create a kingdom
18: Three of the New World's first-generation kingdoms
19: Land of the Scorpion King
20: Black ox hides and golden stools
21: Nursery of civilization
22: Graft and imperialism
23: How new empires learn from old
Part 5: Resisting Inequality:
24: Inequality and natural law
Notes
Sources of illustrations
Index.

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