Title: Theories of Cultural Evolution from the Enlightenment to the Present
Subject Classification:  Sociology, History, Society and Culture  
BIC Classification: JHM, GTB
BISAC Classification: SOC026000, SOC002010, HIS054000
Binding: Hardback, eBook
Planned publication date: Mar 2027
ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-80866-015-3
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-80866-016-0

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Description

This book provides important and necessary information for contextualizing the revolution in the scientific study of cultural evolution currently underway. It tells the story of how social theorists gradually became cognizant of, and eventually came to study systematically, the component of humanity that seemed to set humans apart from other animals: social and cultural change. This project addresses the long-studied, but still dimly understood, question of how culture evolves.

The biological evolution of Homo sapiens as a hominid species is now well documented. However, since the beginnings of civilization approximately 6,000 years ago, the most important changes to our species have not been biological; they have been cultural. Cultural evolution has fascinated philosophers, theorists, and social scientists since the Enlightenment. This book documents those ideas to provide deeper theoretical knowledge and context for more recent studies of cultural evolution, which tend to take a much narrower approach. It reviews early attempts to reconcile cultural differences with theories of universal humanity during the Enlightenment, the cooptation of theories of cultural evolution by eugenics in the nineteenth century, the contributions of Marxism and materialist theories to cultural evolution, the influence of Freud’s view of culture as displaced organic drives, the role of anthropology as an academic profession dedicated to studying culture as such, the spread of structuralism as a theory connecting cultural beliefs to social structures, the inevitable critique of cultural change represented in poststructuralism, and current theories of cultural evolution, which tend to focus more on the microevolution of symbols than the macroevolution of societies typical of theories promulgated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It will be required reading for anyone studying social or cultural change in the twenty-first century.

Biography

Author(s):  Dr Richard M. Simon is a sociologist specializing in the history of social and cultural theory. He teaches sociology and directs the Behavioral Science degree program at Mount St. Joseph University.

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