Social Evolution & History. Volume 16, Number 2 / September 2017

Bell, Duran, Matriliny in Evolutionary Priority
While dismissing the nineteenth century theory of matrilineal priority as an evolutionary scenario, George Murdock (1937) finds that the theory would seem to have validity, provided that one assumes (and he does not) evolutionary stages in prehistory. However, his rejection of the theory appears....

Alexander J. Martín, Population Nucleation and Functional Interdependence in Prehistoric Coastal Ecuador
Increased specialization within communities is often explained as an epiphenomenal effect of political expansion and surplus accumulation. Here, I examine the possible role that community demography and settlement structure might have in promoting (or inhibiting) full-time specialization and....

Chase-Dunn, Christopher; Inoue, Hiroko, Power and Size: Urban and Polity Size Swings and Changes in the Distribution of Power among States in Interstate Systems since the Bronze Age
This study examines the temporal relationships between the growth and decline of cities and states and changes in the distribution of power among states in five whole interstate systems (world-systems) since 2700 BCE. World historians have long recognized that the population sizes of settlements....

Leonid Grinin, On Systemic Integration in the World System since the Bronze Age
The paper discusses some aspects of integration of different regions and societies in the course of historical globalization. Within historical globalization one can observe a close correlation between such important processes as technological transformations, urbanization, political integration,....

Mikhail A. Guzev, Nikolay N. Kradin, and Evgeniya Nikitina, The Imperial Curve of Large Polities
Many researchers, from Edward Gibbon to Arnold Toynbee, were interested in how large polities would emerge and collapse. Traditionally, the history of empires was considered both in temporal and spatial dynamics. This article focuses on the study of the external manifestations of polities'....

Abiodun Akeem Oladiti and Ajibade Samuel Idowu, The Interplay of Town Planning and Colonialism: The Contributions of Albert Thompson to Urban Development in Lagos, 1920–1945
This paper examines the historical development of town planning in Lagos under colonialism. Unfortunately, the contributions of British town planners to the development of Lagos have not been given scholarly attention by historians. It is therefore against this background that this study attempts....

Brian J. L. Berry, Seven Long Waves in America's History
The synthesis of research on colonial America by Earle (1992) and independent America by Berry (1991) results in identification of the seven long Kondratieff waves that have unfolded since initial settlement in the early seventeenth century and the ‘Great Recession’ of the first decade of the....

Antony Harper, Clarity in the Face of Immense World-System Complexity and Crisis. A Review of Economic Crises, Cycles and the Global Periphery by Leonid Grinin, Andrey Korotayev, and Arno Tausch
A Review of ‘Economic Crises, Cycles and the Global Periphery’ by Leonid Grinin, Andrey Korotayev, and Arno Tausch. – Springer, 2016. https://www.socionauki.ru/journal/articles/1213984/.

Anton O. Zakharov, Review of ‘Rural Community: “A Novel Embedded in History”’ by Leonid Alayev
Review of Leonid Alayev, Rural Community: “A Novel Embedded in History”: Critical Analysis of the Theory of Community, Historical Evidence of its Development and Role in the Stratified Society. Moscow: LENAND/URSS, 2016. 480 pp. ISBN 978-5-9710-3745-3. In Russian (Алаев Л. Б.....