Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology, Eleventh Edition |  | Authors: Patrick Nolan, Gerhard Lenski
Publisher: Paradigm Publishers
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Edition: 11
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ISBN: 1594515786
Dewey Decimal Number: 301
EAN: 9781594515781
ASIN: 1594515786
Publication Date: August 30, 2008
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Product Description
The eleventh edition of Human Societies covers many new developments of our rapidly changing times. Among many global updates are changing political ideologies, cyber warfare, biofuels and the problems they present, new population control initiatives, and the increasing democratization and economic power of China. More than 20 new photos grace the newly designed pages of this classic, influential text.
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From an Author: Changes in this Edition March 18, 2009
Patrick Nolan (Columbia, SC USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Although no chapter is entirely unchanged in the present edition, the most noteworthy change in this edition is the elimination of (old) Chapter 15, "Major Social Experiments of the Twentieth Century: Testing the Limits of the Possible." In its place is a short summary in the excursus at the end of Chapter 14, "Marxist Societies as Natural Experiments."
In the early chapters, on preindustrial societies, with few exceptions, the changes are stylistic, but in chapters 9 through 15 the changes are substantive and significant. A summary of these more significant changes is provided below.
A number of photos, figures, and tables have been added, dropped, or substantively changed throughout the text. These changes have altered the placement of a number of figures, tables, and photos familiar to long-time users, only the most notable of which can be listed below. Also, because of changes in formatting and organization, although this edition is physically much thinner than the tenth, it has about the same number of pages (410 vs. 416).
For all these reasons, we strongly recommend that instructors who have used previous editions, as well as those who are using Human Societies for the first time, to page through and consult it before preparing their course materials or making class assignments.
Chapters 1 and 2
The most important changes in these chapters is a further attempt to clarify and emphasize the distinction between human "symbolic" and non-human "behavioral" culture, and the importance of this difference for understanding human societies.
Chapter 3
There are no substantive changes of note.
Chapter 4
The median size of industrial societies has been updated to 10.5 million, and the mean, noted in an asterisked note to Table 4.2, is 35 million. It should be noted that these figures are for 27 industrialized societies - Cyprus and Taiwan have been dropped (see Chapter 10 below).
Chapters 5
No substantive changes of note.
Chapter 6
(Old) Table 6.1 on when various grains and cereals were first cultivated in societies has been dropped, and subsequent tables renumbered.
Chapters 7 and 8
No substantive changes of note.
Virtually all the data and long-term comparisons in Chapters 9-15 have been updated or modified.
Chapter 9
A discussion of "Cyberwarfare" has been added to the section: "A Caution: The Dark Side of the Industrial Revolution"(page 205).
And although the comparison of ENIAC to modern personal computers has been updated (see page 202), as I indicated in the last two editions of Human Societies, this comparison has become increasingly difficult not only in terms of trying to keep up with the rapidly growing power of contemporary computers, but in terms of meaningfully comparing the capabilities (e.g., computing power and memory) of such radically different machines.
Chapter 10
As I noted earlier, recent per capita GDP data indicate that 27 societies can be considered "industrialized," and data on them are used in Table 4.2, and this and the following chapters. They are listed on page 216. Cyprus and Taiwan have been dropped from the industrial list in this edition, because there is/was so much missing data on important variables for them; this formal change had/has little effect on the analysis and comparison of industrial societies .
As would be expected this had/has little effect on the data and trends because they were already missing from most tables and comparisons.
They are listed on page 213; older, more established, industrial societies are italicized.
Given the effects of compounding, the long-term GNP growth figures for the U.S. and Great Britain continue to change noticeably. The GNP growth multiples now are: Great Britain 1830 to present (the latest figures were for 2006) more than 30 times, U.S. 1870 to present almost 100 times. These translate into per capita growth multiples of about 13 for both societies.
Table 10.1 is unchanged, but data in Table 10.2 have been updated and the figure for tertiary industries in 1870 has been corrected to 24.
Table 10.3 has been updated with data on the percentage of eligible workers in unions and its change from 1970 to 2003. This better measure and longer time span really emphasize the dramatic differences among industrial societies.
New data on concentration ratios in manufacturing, Table 10.5, became available for this revision, and a few industries were substituted in the table (e.g., small arms, distillers, bottled water, and tortillas) to provoke student interest.
Tables 10.6 and 10.7 have been updated.
Chapter 11
Tables 11.1, 11.2, and 11.3 are unchanged.
"Environmentalism" has been added as a new secular ideology in industrial societies, and some of its parallels with traditional Christianity are noted.
A new boxed insert, "Money and Politics" (p. 249), discusses, with illustrations, the corrupting influence of money on politics in industrial societies.
Chapter 12
As would be expected, virtually all the data on, and discussion of, stratification has been updated and revised. (Figure 12.2 is unchanged.)
Perhaps most striking of the changes, although Bill Gates and Warren Buffet continue to be the two richest individuals in the world, the members of the Walton family have dropped out of the top 15 and, consequently, American representation in Table 12.1 has substantially declined.
Subcategories of blue- and white-collar employment have been collapsed in Table 12.3 to better show the magnitude of the trend of increasing white-collar employment.
Chapter 13
Although there were no fundamental changes to the chapter, the data in the figures, tables, and text comparisons have been updated throughout this chapter. Figure 13.1 now presents data for female labor force participation for three (rather than four) years: 1890, 1960, 2005; and Table 13.4 now also shows the increase in medical degrees earned by women from 1960 to 2005.
Chapter 14
With the exception of Tables 14.1, on commodity concentration, and Table 14.8, on patriarchal attitudes in industrializing societies, all the data and comparisons in this chapter have been updated.
A new boxed insert -- "The Worst Place to Be a Woman" (page 315) -- dramatizes the plight of women in many industrializing societies. This personalizes implications of data in Tables 14.7 and 14.8.
There is also a new excursus to Chapter 14 - "Marxist Societies as Natural Experiments" (pages 321-322 - which summarizes the key points old Chapter 15 and emphasizes the human toll of attempts to put Marx's revolutionary socialism into practice. (There is also more discussion of China in Chapters 14 and new Chapter 15.)
As a result, old Chapter 15, "Major Social Experiments of the Twentieth Century: Testing the Limits of the Possible," has been dropped from the 11th edition of Human Societies.
With the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Soviet Union, and its hegemony over Eastern Europe, now some twenty years in the past, a detailed discussion of their features became increasingly less compelling, especially given the time pressures in a single-semester introductory course. A fifteen chapter profile for the book better fits the needs of most instructors. (Please -mail me your reactions to this change, and if there is a perceived need for this material we may make it available in another venue/format.)
Old Chapter 15
Dropped.
New Chapter 15 (Old Chapter 16)
The first part of the chapter, "Looking Back," is virtually unchanged, but there have been a number of important changes in the rest of the chapter, especially "Looking Ahead: "Natural Resources and the Biophysical Environment." The prospects of cheap and easy bio-fuels are dimming greatly, and "peak oil" (i.e., that oil production will decline in future, as demand continues to increase) is being taken seriously by more observers. (I must admit, though, that, as you may have gleaned from recent editions, I am becoming increasingly skeptical of some of these dire predictions and of anthropogenic global warming. To the extent that we are facing greater threats and dangers (e.g., rising food costs, and shortages), they seem more politician, than environment, driven phenomena.)
Data comparisons, and discussion throughout the chapter have been updated.
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