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The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for
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The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire Hardcover - 2012

by Kent Flannery; Joyce Marcus


From the publisher

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.

Details

  • Title The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire
  • Author Kent Flannery; Joyce Marcus
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition US Edition
  • Pages 631
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Date 04/02/2012
  • Illustrated Yes
  • ISBN 9780674064690 / 0674064690
  • Weight 2.48 lbs (1.12 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.42 x 6.57 x 1.7 in (23.93 x 16.69 x 4.32 cm)
  • Library of Congress subjects Prehistoric peoples, Social evolution
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2011039902
  • Dewey Decimal Code 569.9

About the author

Kent Flannery is James B. Griffin Distinguished University Professor of AnthropologicalArchaeology and Curator, Environmental Archaeology at the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan.
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The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire

by Kent Flannery,Joyce Marcus

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The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery,...
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The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire

by Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire

by Flannery, Kent; Marcus, Joyce

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Harvard University Press, 2012-05-07. Hardcover. New. 9x6x1. New. Clean, unmarked pages. Fine binding and cover. Hardcover. xiii, 631 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.
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