The Logistic Growth of Political Areas

Hart, Hornell

doi:10.2307/2571873

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Roscoe's discussion of the problem with polities is absolutely crucial. At present, we have descriptions of at least six patterns, mostly hinting at a common process of increasing areas (Hart, 1948) and decreasing numbers of polities Marano, 1973;Naroll, 1967) integrated at increasing levels of political integration, as shown in Peregrine, Ember, and Ember's article in this issue, over the long time span of the archaeological record. The exception to this trend is the pattern Graber describes of increasing numbers of states throughout the relatively short time span of the 20th century.…”

Section: Amber Lynn Johnsonmentioning

confidence: 98%

Authors’ Responses

Roscoe¹,

Johnson²,

Peregrine³

et al. 2004

Cross-Cultural Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Discussants are usually given the last word, and justly so. It is a task in itself to try to integrate a set of articles and then move them forward; to have a discussant who is also willing to let authors pick over his or her efforts is rare indeed. I doubt I am the only contributor, therefore, who is doubly grateful to Read-for shouldering the traditional task and for agreeing to allow us our critical returns.Read's principal critique, focused mainly on the articles by Peregrine, Ember, and Ember and by Graber, concerns the validity of empirically projecting the past into the future. Like several previous theorists (Hart, Naroll, Marano, and Carneiro), these contributors have taken empirical trends in past political integration and, with various statistical tweaking, projected them forward to pinpoint future global unification. Read finds these approaches inadequate because the authors do not justify their assumption that past trends will continue without major change. "Without an adequate theory that accounts both for why fusion or coalescence of societies should take place and for why fissioning of societies occurs, these projections are simply conjectures, not rigorous estimates" (Read, 2004 [this issue]).Read's cautions on the dangers of empirical projection are certainly sound, and I should doubt that any contributor would disagree with them. But his diagnosis of the problem and his prescription for a solution-an "adequate" theory of political integration to underwrite the projections-are epistemologically problematic, as fraught, in fact, as the practices he criticizes. Read's critique is Popper's critique of inductivism: We cannot assume from the fact that the sun has always risen in the past that it will do so tomorrow, for the next 300 years, or whatever. Read's proposed remedy 196

show abstract

Section: Amber Lynn Johnsonmentioning

confidence: 98%

Authors’ Responses

Roscoe¹,

Johnson²,

Peregrine³

et al. 2004

Cross-Cultural Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Hart presented his lag thesis through a paper on 'Technology and the Growth of Political Areas' at the Chicago institute mentioned earlier, and in papers published in the late forties and early fifties. 114 Like Ogburn he called for social science to be 'applied to the problems of directing international cooperation toward the protection of mankind from destruction by physical science applied to military technology'. 115 Modern international relations, he noted, was in crisis due to 'technological acceleration' which was manifesting through the invention of increasingly deadly weapons.…”

Section: Cultural Lagmentioning

confidence: 99%

Invention, Interdependence, and the Lag

2021

Technological Internationalism and World Order

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Economic, social, political, and ideological relationships that once extended no farther than to a handful of nearby communities now reach across the face of the earth. Going forward, some scholars speculate that the entire human race could become a single political entity within 500 to 3,000 years (Carneiro ; Hart ; Marano ; Naroll ; Peregrine et al ).…”

Section: Projecting Climate Futures From the Pastmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Changing Climate for Anthropological and Archaeological Research? Improving the Climate-Change Models

Roscoe

2014

American Anthropologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Climate change is the latest in a dismaying series of challenges that industrialism and modernity have gifted to humanity. To date, anthropological and archaeological responses have focused largely on the culturally particular-that is, on the interactions of climate, environment, cultural schema, and social systems in specific locales and eras. In this article, I urge a complementary response that capitalizes on archaeology and anthropology's holistic and universalistic investigative aspirations and expertise. For two decades, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has overseen major efforts to model human social dynamics and their implications for future climate change. These models are technically sophisticated but economically reductionist and substantively crude. Here, I review these efforts and provide three examples of how established and future archaeological and anthropological research could improve them. Recent changes to the IPCC's modeling regime make this an opportune moment for such a project. [climate change, climate modeling, IPCC, emissions scenarios] RESUMEN El cambio climático es elúltimo en una serie de preocupantes retos que el industrialismo y la modernidad le han regalado a la humanidad. Hasta la fecha, las respuestas antropológicas y arqueológicas se han centrado largamente en lo culturalmente particular-es decir, en las interacciones de clima, ambiente, esquema cultural, y sistemas sociales en locales y eras específicos. En este artículo, urjo una respuesta complementaria que capitalice en el conocimiento y las aspiraciones investigativas holísticas y universalistas de la arqueología y la antropología. Por dos décadas, el Panel Intergubernamental sobre Cambio Climático (IPCC) ha monitoreado grandes esfuerzos para modelar dinámicas sociales y sus implicaciones para el cambio climático futuro. Estos modelos son técnicamente sofisticados pero económicamente reduccionistas y substantivamente aproximados. Aquí, reviso estos esfuerzos y proveo tres ejemplos de cómo investigación arqueológica y antropológica establecida y futura los podría mejorar. Cambios recientes al régimen de modelización del IPCC hace este un momento oportuno para tal proyecto. [cambio climático, modelización climática, IPCC, escenarios de emisiones]I n less than nine decades, if nothing is done, global mean temperature could rise by 3½ -4°C or more. Higher latitudes will see 20 percent more precipitation; Africa and southern Europe, 20 percent less. The intensity and frequency of heat waves, flooding, and tropical cyclones will have increased; the Arctic ice cap likely will have vanished, along with 30 percent of the world's coastal wetlands; and 30 percent of all species will be teetering on the edge of

show abstract

The Logistic Growth of Political Areas

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

Authors’ Responses

Authors’ Responses

Invention, Interdependence, and the Lag

A Changing Climate for Anthropological and Archaeological Research? Improving the Climate-Change Models

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About