Publisher's Synopsis
This study proposes a novel solution to the question of how societies evolve.;Current theories all assume that institutions survive and spread because of their adaptive advantages. C.R.Hallpike takes the view that a wide variety of forms of life can all work perfectly well, particularly in small-scale societies with simple technologies. So the most common practices need not be adaptively superior at all, but may simply be the easiest to operate, or the result of universal human proclivities. These early forms may survive because of lack of effective competition in an undemanding social environment, and their real evolutionary significance lies in their latent structural properties, which may have great developmental potential.;Professor Hallpike compares in detail the core principles of Chinese and Indo-European society, and argues on this basis that a limited number of social and cosmological principles guide the evolution of each society, opposing the traditional concepts of adaptive advantage, random variation and environmental determinism.;C.R.Hallpike has also written "The Konso of Ethiopia" (1972), "Bloodshed and Vengeance in the Papuan Mountains" (1977) and "The Foundations of Primitive Thought" (1979).
