Ancient society
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Ancient society
Transaction Publishers, c2000
- : pbk
Available at 8 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Originally published: Calcutta : Bharati Library, 1877
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) was a remarkable Victorian, justly compared with two other giant intellects of his age, Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. All three were conventional men, but they all developed theories with radical and revolutionary implications. All were concerned with "evolution" in one form or another, putting them in conflict with religious and intellectual orthodoxy. Morgan believed it both natural and proper to learn by what stages of growth mankind had risen from savagery to civilization.
In his important new introduction, Robin Fox reviews the developmental and social evolutionary thesis put forward by Morgan in light of what we have learned from the twentieth century. Ancient Society defines three major stages in the cultural and social evolution of mankind. Morgan describes how savages, advancing by definite steps, attained the higher condition of barbarism. He then explores how barbarians, by similar progressive advancement, finally attained civilization. Finally he discusses why other tribes and nations have been left behind in the race of progress. Inventions and discoveries show the similarity of human wants at the same stages of advancement, thus demonstrating the psychic unity of mankind. The idea of property-now an obsession in civilized society-underwent a similar process of growth and development, as did the principles of government. By the "comparative method" of using existing and historical societies as examples of previous stages, the history of human progress could be reconstructed. These parallel lines along the pathways of human progress form the principal subjects of discussion in Ancient Society.
In his opening statement Robin Fox argues that social science was wrong to dismiss the comparative method, and paid a great price in the fragmentation of the unity of purpose that Morgan's method provided. Ancient Society's great cultural import with its lasting wisdom will be of interest to scholars and students in the social sciences and all those interested in the question of the unity of the sciences of mankind.
Robin Fox is University Professor of Social Theory at Rutgers University. His books include Conjectures and Confrontations, Reproduction and Succession, The Challenge of Anthropology, and Encounter with Anthropology, all available from Transaction.
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