Social evolutionism : a critical history
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Social evolutionism : a critical history
（Studies in social discontinuity / general editor, Charles Tilly）
Blackwell, 1990
Available at 15 libraries
Note
bibliography: p. [229]-243
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In this book Sanderson turns a critical eye on theorists from Herbert Spencer and Talcott Parsons to contemporary thinkers such as Gerhard Lenski and Marvin Harris, examining in each case the logical and epistemological foundation of the theory, and drawing essential distinctions between theories. In this examination of the history of evolutionary thought, Stephen Sanderson reveals how the global term "evolutionism" is used to describe a complex variety of specific theories, and traces in detail the distinguishing characteristics of these theories and their critics. In the process, the author develops the argument that because critics of evolutionary theory have failed to distinguish among different versions of it, their criticisms are often misdirected at theories for which they have little or no relevance.
Table of Contents
- The nature of social evolutionism
- classical evolutionism
- the anti-evolutionary reaction
- marxism as evolutionism
- the evolutionary revival
- sociological neo-evolutionism
- anthropological evoutionism since 1960
- evolutionary biology and social evolutionism
- contemporary anti-evolutionism
- toward a comprehensive theory of sociocultural evolution.
by "Nielsen BookData"