A Sociology of Humankind

Based upon the interdependencies of human beings as we cooperate and conflict with each other, how we share information, and how culture evolves, this book proposes a sociology of humanity covering three hundred millennia. Grounded in empirical findings from archaeology, history, lab experiments, and field studies – supplemented for precision with computational network models of cultural evolution, cooperation, influence, cohesion, warfare, power, social balance, and inequality – this is the first attempt at encompassing sociology of humankind. Informed by the theory of cultural evolution, it extends the notion that cultural evolution connects humans of all times in a giant sociocultural network, thereby yielding coherence between a great many empirical findings. It will therefore appeal to scholars of sociology and anthropology with interests in historical sociology, cultural evolution, and social theory.