Sanderson explores the nature of the contemporary world's 200 societies by comparing and contrasting their basic institutions and patterns of social organization. Major topics include the rich democracies and how they became rich and democratic; the expansion of government and the welfare state; the collapse of Communism and the transition to postsocialist societies; the conditions of less-developed countries, with attention to those that are developing rapidly as well as those that continue to lag far behind; racial and ethnic divisions and conflicts worldwide; the gender revolution of the past fifty years and changing contemporary patterns of gender inequality throughout the world; major shifts in family patterns and the transition to below-replacement fertility; the global spread and expansion of mass education and educational credentialism; worldwide patterns of religious belief and practice; a detailed evaluation of the secularization thesis; economic, political, and cultural globalization; the nature of social and economic progress over the past two centuries; and nine predictions concerning the short-term and long-term future of the world. The book provides detailed and fully up-to-date statistical data on societies in forty-three tables.

Stephen K. Sanderson s latest book recaptures a scientific theoretical sociology, one whose fundamental aim is the formulation of real theories that can be empirically tested. Sanderson reviews the major theoretical traditions within contemporary sociology, explicating their key principles, critically evaluating these principles and their applications, and showcasing exemplars. He judges each tradition by asking whether it has generated falsifiable research programs. Although principally a work of theoretical critique, "Rethinking Sociological Theory" is also a valuable textbook for both undergraduate and graduate courses in sociological theory."

This book attempts a broad theoretical synthesis within the field of sociology and its closely allied sister discipline of anthropology. It draws together what the author considers the best of these disciplinesO theoretical approaches into a synthesized theory called Darwinian conflict theory. This theory, in the most general sense, is a synthesis of the tradition of economic and ecological materialism and conflict theory stemming from Marx, Marvin Harris, and the tradition of biological materialism deriving from Darwin. The first half of the book is taken up with critiques of existing theoretical approaches; this then leads to the full elaboration, in formal propositional form, of synthetic theory. The second half of the book lays out the large amount of evidence, both qualitative and quantitative, that supports the synthesized theory.

Stephen K. Sanderson s latest book recaptures a scientific theoretical sociology, one whose fundamental aim is the formulation of real theories that can be empirically tested. Sanderson reviews the major theoretical traditions within contemporary sociology, explicating their key principles, critically evaluating these principles and their applications, and showcasing exemplars. He judges each tradition by asking whether it has generated falsifiable research programs. Although principally a work of theoretical critique, "Rethinking Sociological Theory" is also a valuable textbook for both undergraduate and graduate courses in sociological theory."

In Social Transformations: A General Theory of Historical Development Stephen K. Sanderson develops a general theory of social evolution and uses it to explain the most important evolutionary transformations in human history and prehistory. In this expanded edition Sanderson has added a discussion of the biological constraints acting on humans that have helped to push social evolution along strikingly similar lines throughout the world. The new discussion places the theoretical arguments of Social Transformations in the context of an even more comprehensive theory of human social behavior.

This expanded, updated edition offers a new chapter on terrorism, including jihadism. Revolutions and state breakdowns are the primary focus as Sanderson presents prominent theories and describes the process of revolutions. The book covers famous revolutions from history (France, Russia, China) and several social and political revolutions in the third world (Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and the Philippines). Given the frequency of revolutionary movements, a key question addressed by the book is Why are actual revolutions so rare? Sanderson also assesses the state breakdowns in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union after 1989, the typical outcomes of revolutions, and the future of revolutions. An appendix presents biographical and autobiographical sketches of several of the most prominent scholars of revolutions. "Features of this text and to the new Second Edition" "

This expanded, updated edition offers a new chapter on terrorism, including jihadism. Revolutions and state breakdowns are the primary focus as Sanderson presents prominent theories and describes the process of revolutions. The book covers famous revolutions from history (France, Russia, China) and several social and political revolutions in the third world (Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and the Philippines). Given the frequency of revolutionary movements, a key question addressed by the book is Why are actual revolutions so rare? Sanderson also assesses the state breakdowns in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union after 1989, the typical outcomes of revolutions, and the future of revolutions. An appendix presents biographical and autobiographical sketches of several of the most prominent scholars of revolutions. "Features of this text and to the new Second Edition" "

"A thought-provoking, stimulating volume on the past, present and future of cultural materialism that is both laudatory of Harris' research strategy and critical of it." Paul Shankman, University of Colorado One of the most important anthropologists of all time, Marvin Harris was influential worldwide as the founder of cultural materialism. This book accessibly analyzes Harris's theories and their important legacies today. The chapters explore cultural materialism's epistemology and its relation to rational choice theory, Darwinian social science, and population pressures. The authors assess recent attempts to extend and reformulate cultural materialism and highlight cross-cultural, archaeological, and ethnographic applications of cultural materialism today.

Evolutionism and Its Critics is a critical history of evolutionary theories in the social sciences and a defense of them against their many critics. Sanderson deconstructs not only the wide array of social evolutionary theories, but the criticisms of the antievolutionists. Deconstructing evolutionary theories means laying bare their fundamental epistemological, methodological, conceptual, and theoretical assumptions and principles. Deconstructing antievolutionism means showing just where and how the critics have, for the most part, gone wrong. But Evolutionism and Its Critics aims to reconstruct as well as deconstruct and does this by building, on the shoulders of past giants of evolutionary theorizing, a comprehensive evolutionary interpretation of human society based on abundant scientific and historical evidence.

"A thought-provoking, stimulating volume on the past, present and future of cultural materialism that is both laudatory of Harris' research strategy and critical of it." Paul Shankman, University of Colorado One of the most important anthropologists of all time, Marvin Harris was influential worldwide as the founder of cultural materialism. This book accessibly analyzes Harris's theories and their important legacies today. The chapters explore cultural materialism's epistemology and its relation to rational choice theory, Darwinian social science, and population pressures. The authors assess recent attempts to extend and reformulate cultural materialism and highlight cross-cultural, archaeological, and ethnographic applications of cultural materialism today.

Evolutionism and Its Critics is a critical history of evolutionary theories in the social sciences and a defense of them against their many critics. Sanderson deconstructs not only the wide array of social evolutionary theories, but the criticisms of the antievolutionists. Deconstructing evolutionary theories means laying bare their fundamental epistemological, methodological, conceptual, and theoretical assumptions and principles. Deconstructing antievolutionism means showing just where and how the critics have, for the most part, gone wrong. But Evolutionism and Its Critics aims to reconstruct as well as deconstruct and does this by building, on the shoulders of past giants of evolutionary theorizing, a comprehensive evolutionary interpretation of human society based on abundant scientific and historical evidence.

In Social Transformations: A General Theory of Historical Development Stephen K. Sanderson develops a general theory of social evolution and uses it to explain the most important evolutionary transformations in human history and prehistory. In this expanded edition Sanderson has added a discussion of the biological constraints acting on humans that have helped to push social evolution along strikingly similar lines throughout the world. The new discussion places the theoretical arguments of Social Transformations in the context of an even more comprehensive theory of human social behavior.

The grand historical and social theorizing of early in this century-works that conjure up names like Marx, Spengler, Toynbee, and Sorokin-has been out of favor for many years. Only recently have two new schools of research, comparative civilizational studies and world systems analysis, emerged to examine societies in the broadest possible terms. These two intellectual movements have run on parallel tracks, seldom engaging in each other's work-until now! Sanderson invites the leading figures in these two groups-including Wallerstein, MacNeill, Frank, Wilkinson, Chase-Dunn, and Robertson-to compare and contrast their assumptions and conclusions about broad-scale social and historical change. A mixture of newly commissioned work and recently published articles, this book is unmatched as a useful introduction to current thinking about global historical change.

Sanderson explores the nature of the contemporary world's 200 societies by comparing and contrasting their basic institutions and patterns of social organization. Major topics include the rich democracies and how they became rich and democratic; the expansion of government and the welfare state; the collapse of Communism and the transition to postsocialist societies; the conditions of less-developed countries, with attention to those that are developing rapidly as well as those that continue to lag far behind; racial and ethnic divisions and conflicts worldwide; the gender revolution of the past fifty years and changing contemporary patterns of gender inequality throughout the world; major shifts in family patterns and the transition to below-replacement fertility; the global spread and expansion of mass education and educational credentialism; worldwide patterns of religious belief and practice; a detailed evaluation of the secularization thesis; economic, political, and cultural globalization; the nature of social and economic progress over the past two centuries; and nine predictions concerning the short-term and long-term future of the world. The book provides detailed and fully up-to-date statistical data on societies in forty-three tables.

This new edition is a substantial abridgment and update of Randall Collins 's 1975 classic, "Conflict Sociology." The first edition represented the most powerful and comprehensive statement of conflict theory in its time. Here, Sanderson has retained the core chapters and added discussions on Collins 's and others work in recent years. An afterword summarizes Collins 's latest forays into microsociological theorizing and attempts to demonstrate how his newer microsociology and older macrosociology are connected.

Revolution and state breakdown are the focus of this important new book that analyzes the most prominent theories of revolution and points to future directions. Covers famous revolutions from history (France, China, Russia) and those in the developing world in addressing such key questions as "why are revolutions so rare?" Revolutions also looks at the state breakdowns in Eastern Europe after 1989, the typical outcomes of revolutions, and the possible future of revolutions. An appendix presents biographical and autobiographical sketches of several of the most prominent students of revolutions. Contents: Understanding Revolutions. The Great Historical Revolutions. Revolutions in the Third World. The Causes of Revolutions: I. The Causes of Revolutions: II. The State Breakdowns in Eastern Europe. The Outcomes of Revolutions. The Future of Revolutions.

This reissue of the now classic "Sociological Worlds" (originally published in 1995) attempts to present a comprehensive picture of human social life--from the perspective of the "comparative-historical revolution" in sociology and presents some of the best theoretical and empirical work that is now being done by comparative-historical sociologists, as well as work by their close cousins, socio-cultural anthropologists. From this perspective, readers gain a picture of the major ways in which human societies differ.
For this new library edition, Professor Sanderson has provided both a new preface and three contributions that did not appear in the original edition.

Religious Evolution and the Axial Age describes and explains the evolution of religion over the past ten millennia. It shows that an overall evolutionary sequence can be observed, running from the spirit and shaman dominated religions of small-scale societies, to the archaic religions of the ancient civilizations, and then to the salvation religions of the Axial Age. Stephen K. Sanderson draws on ideas from new cognitive and evolutionary psychological theories, as well as comparative religion, anthropology, history, and sociology. He argues that religion is a biological adaptation that evolved in order to solve a number of human problems, especially those concerned with existential anxiety and ontological insecurity. Much of the focus of the book is on the Axial Age, the period in the second half of the first millennium BCE that marked the greatest religious transformation in world history. The book demonstrates that, as a result of massive increases in the scale and scope of war and large-scale urbanization, the problems of existential anxiety and ontological insecurity became particularly acute. These changes evoked new religious needs, especially for salvation and release from suffering. As a result entirely new religions-Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism-arose to help people cope with the demands of the new historical era.

This new edition is a substantial abridgment and update of Randall Collins 's 1975 classic, "Conflict Sociology." The first edition represented the most powerful and comprehensive statement of conflict theory in its time. Here, Sanderson has retained the core chapters and added discussions on Collins 's and others work in recent years. An afterword summarizes Collins 's latest forays into microsociological theorizing and attempts to demonstrate how his newer microsociology and older macrosociology are connected.

If evolution has changed humans physically, has it also affected human behavior? Drawing on evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, and human behavioral ecology, "Human Nature and the Evolution of Society "explores the evolutionary dynamics underlying social life.
In this introduction to human behavior and the organization of social life, Stephen K. Sanderson discusses traditional subjects like mating behavior, kinship, parenthood, status-seeking, and violence, as well as important topics seldom included in books of this type, especially gender, economies, politics, foodways, race and ethnicity, and the arts. Examples and research on a wide range of human societies, both industrial and nonindustrial, are integrated throughout. With chapter summaries of key points, thoughtful discussion questions, and important terms defined within the text, the result is a broad-ranging and comprehensive consideration of human society, thoroughly grounded in an evolutionary perspective.

Sociological Worlds: Comparative and Historical Readings on Society, edited by Stephen K. Sanderson, is the first anthology for undergraduate courses in sociology to offer a specifically comparative and historical focus. Sanderson has brought together 34 readings which focus on the most fundamental topics in modern macrosociology:
* preindustrial and precapitalist economies
* political systems
* the rise of capitalism, industrialism, and socialism
* race and ethnicity
* economic development and underdevelopment
* gender relations
* stratification systems
* educational systems
The readings are drawn from the works of many of macrosociology's most prominent thinkers and represent an interdisciplinary array of viewpoints, combining sociology with anthropology, economics, and political science. Thought-provoking introductions to each section and each article guide the reader and ease instruction by identifying and explaining central issues, key concepts, and relationships among topics. This adds internal cohesiveness and structure to the readings.

Religious Evolution and the Axial Age describes and explains the evolution of religion over the past ten millennia. It shows that an overall evolutionary sequence can be observed, running from the spirit and shaman dominated religions of small-scale societies, to the archaic religions of the ancient civilizations, and then to the salvation religions of the Axial Age. Stephen K. Sanderson draws on ideas from new cognitive and evolutionary psychological theories, as well as comparative religion, anthropology, history, and sociology. He argues that religion is a biological adaptation that evolved in order to solve a number of human problems, especially those concerned with existential anxiety and ontological insecurity. Much of the focus of the book is on the Axial Age, the period in the second half of the first millennium BCE that marked the greatest religious transformation in world history. The book demonstrates that, as a result of massive increases in the scale and scope of war and large-scale urbanization, the problems of existential anxiety and ontological insecurity became particularly acute. These changes evoked new religious needs, especially for salvation and release from suffering. As a result entirely new religions-Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism-arose to help people cope with the demands of the new historical era.