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The sources of social power Vol. 1 A history of power from the beginning to A.D. 1760

By: Language: English Publisher: Cambridge : Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986Description: ix, 549 s. diagr., tabISBN:
  • 0521308518
  • 052131349X
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 303.3 19
Other classification:
  • Ku
  • Oab
  • O:d
Supplement to:
Holdings
Item type Current library Shelving location Call number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Book Biblioteket HKR Magasin Ku Mann Available 11156000146517
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This is the first part of a three-volume work on the nature of power in human societies. In it, Michael Mann identifies the four principal 'sources' of power as being control over economic, ideological, military, and political resources. He examines the interrelations between these in a narrative history of power from Neolithic times, through ancient Near Eastern civilisations, the classical Mediterranean age, and medieval Europe, up to just before the Industrial Revolution in England. Rejecting the conventional monolithic concept of a 'society', Dr. Mann's model is instead one of a series of overlapping, intersecting power networks. He makes this model operational by focusing on the logistics of power - how the flow of information, manpower, and goods is controlled over social and geographical space-thereby clarifying many of the 'great debates' in sociological theory. The present volume offers explanations of the emergence of the state and social stratification.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

  • Preface
  • 1 Societies as organized power networks
  • 2 The end of general social evolution: how prehistoric peoples evaded power
  • 3 The emergence of stratification, states, and multi-power-actor civilisation in Mesopotamia
  • 4 A comparative analysis of the emergence of stratification, states, and multi-power-actor civilisations
  • 5 The first empires of domination: the dialectics of compulsory cooperation
  • 6 'Indo-Europeans' and iron: expanding, diversified power networks
  • 7 Phoenicians and Greeks: decentralized multi-power-actor civilisations
  • 8 Revitalized empires of domination: Assyria and Persia
  • 9 The Roman territorial empire
  • 10 Ideology transcendent: the Christian ecumene
  • 11 A comparative excursus into the world religions: Confucianism, Islam, and (especially) Hindu caste
  • 12 The European dynamic: I. The intensive phase, A. D. 800-1155
  • 13 The European dynamics: II. The rise of coordinating states, 1155-1477
  • 14 The European dynamic: III. International capitalism and organic national states, 1477-1760
  • 15 European conclusions: explaining European dynamism - capitalism, Christendom, and states
  • 16 Patterns of world-historical development in agrarian societies
  • Index