The Principles of Social Evolution

Front Cover
Clarendon Press, 1986 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 412 pages
Dispelling the general assumption that social institutions survive because of their sophisticated adaptive advantages, this ground-breaking work asserts that the commonest customs and institutions may endure because of their very simplicity or as a result of simple human proclivity. Using religious, military, and kinship institutions to illustrate this argument, the author shows that a precise combination of these factors may lead to the emergence of new forms of social evolution.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
1
Inheritance and variation
47
Competition and cooperation
56
Copyright

11 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Bibliographic information