Description
American archaeologist, anthropologist, and historian Joseph A. Tainter addresses the question of why many empires, states, and other complex organizational forms of human society collapsed in his most famous work. He first presents nearly two dozen cases of collapse and provides an overview of the theories that have been used to explain these collapses over the past two thousand years. He then develops his own broadly applicable theory of collapses (in which collapses are explained by a decline in the marginal returns of investments in complexity). Through detailed studies of the collapse of the Roman and Mayan empires and the American Chaco culture, he tests the validity of his model and clarifies the functioning of disintegration processes. In the concluding chapter, he reflects on whether contemporary society is also at risk of collapse, which is one of the concerns of a twenty-first-century individual.
Information
Author: Tainter Joseph A.
Publication date: September 14, 2022
Manufacturer: Dokořán s. r. o.
Genres: Books, Non-fiction literature, History and facts
Type: Hardcover books
Pages: 320
ISBN/EAN: 9788076750852