Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables
- Figures
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Comparative Archaeology
- Chapter 2 Approaches to Comparative Analysis in Archaeology
- Chapter 3 Comparative Frames for the Diachronic Analysis of Complex Societies
- Chapter 4 What It Takes to Get Complex
- Chapter 5 Challenges for Comparative Study of Early Complex Societies
- Chapter 6 Patterned Variation in Regional Trajectories of Community Growth
- Chapter 7 The Genesis of Monuments in Island Societies
- Chapter 8 Power and Legitimation
- Chapter 9 The Strategies of Provincials in Empires
- Chapter 10 Household Economies under the Aztec and Inka Empires
- Chapter 11 Low-Density, Agrarian-Based Urbanism
- Chapter 12 Archaeology, Early Complex Societies, and Comparative Social Science History
- Index
Foreword
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables
- Figures
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Comparative Archaeology
- Chapter 2 Approaches to Comparative Analysis in Archaeology
- Chapter 3 Comparative Frames for the Diachronic Analysis of Complex Societies
- Chapter 4 What It Takes to Get Complex
- Chapter 5 Challenges for Comparative Study of Early Complex Societies
- Chapter 6 Patterned Variation in Regional Trajectories of Community Growth
- Chapter 7 The Genesis of Monuments in Island Societies
- Chapter 8 Power and Legitimation
- Chapter 9 The Strategies of Provincials in Empires
- Chapter 10 Household Economies under the Aztec and Inka Empires
- Chapter 11 Low-Density, Agrarian-Based Urbanism
- Chapter 12 Archaeology, Early Complex Societies, and Comparative Social Science History
- Index
Summary
The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies is a terrific book that should be read by every advanced undergraduate and graduate student with interests in the rise of preindustrial cultural complexity. Why am I so enthusiastic about the volume? My enthusiasm rests on both the high quality of its chapters and the signal importance of the subject matter and general approach in the book. This volume is a clarion call for archaeologists to take advantage of the rich database now available to them to significantly advance archaeological elucidation of the development of complex societies through time and space.
But such a goal seems so obvious. Why is a forceful argument for its importance necessary, especially because understanding the reasons for the rise of complex social, political, and economic organization has been of great interest to anthropological archaeologists for a long time?
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- The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies , pp. xvii - xxPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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