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

摘要

In contrast to most social science research, anthropology considers the full range of human social systems, and looks deep in time, using archaeology to probe social and economic processes beyond the reach of historical records. In light of the increased focus on the political economy of inequality in academic, policy, and activist circles, an examination of the origins of, and cross-cultural variation in, inequality is timely. Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus (hereafter, F&M) are both eminent archaeologists, each with a lifetime of research in many settings; here, they are clearly writing for the general reader. The volume ranges globally, and over the full span of our species' history (nearly 200,000 years), but with an emphasis on the last few millennia, when most social complexity and inequality arose and spread. The prose is clear, even folksy at times, and generally free of specialist terminology. There are many line drawings (of archaeological sites and artifacts), but no tables or graphs, let alone equations, and the few numbers are mostly dates, population sizes, or site dimensions. The bibliographic notes are copious and indicate wide familiarity with archaeological and ethnographic literature on particular societies; citations to the theoretical or analytical literature are much more selective, even idiosyncratic (on which more, below).