Stock photo.
The Collapse of Complex Societies
by Joseph Tainter
Review this book!
No summary of this book is available at this time. Click here to contribute a summary of The Collapse of Complex Societies.
Available editions of The Collapse of Complex Societies
![]() |
9780521386739,
Paperback,
Cambridge Univ Pr,
1990
Other copies of 9780521386739 |
||
![]() |
9780521340922,
Book,
Cambridge University Press,
1988
None currently available |
||
Publisher Notes
Political disintegration is a persistent feature of world history. The Collapse of Complex Societies, though written by an archaeologist, will therefore strike a chord throughout the social sciences. Any explanation of societal collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all such societies in both the present and future. 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 that accounts for collapse among diverse kinds of societies, evaluating his model and clarifying the processes of disintegration by detailed studies of the Roman, Mayan and Chacoan collapses.
Review this book!





