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The Course of Human History:: Economic Growth, social process, and civilization
This text explores four major features of human society in their ecological and historical the origins of priests and organised religion; the rise of military men in an agrarian society; economic expansion and growth; and civilising and decivilising trends over time.
164 pages, Paperback
First published June 4, 1996
18 people want to read
About the author
Johan Goudsblom
27 books6 followersJ. Goudsblom (1932) is emeritus hoogleraar sociologie aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Hij behoorde tot de oprichters en eerste redactie van het literaire tijdschrift Tirade. Zo bezien is deze eerste verschijning van Vuur en beschaving bij Van Oorschot een soort ‘thuiskomst'. Goudsblom bundelde aforismen in Pasmunt (1958) en Reserves (1998). Hij publiceerde tal van sociologische werken. Vuur en beschaving verscheen in 1992 gelijktijdig in het Nederlands en het Engels. Van de Engelse editie is een herdruk verschenen als Penguin. Het boek werd verder vertaald in het Duits, Spaans, Italiaans, Hongaars, Japans en Chinees.
Johan Goudsblom – known to his friends as ‘Joop’ – was Professor of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam from 1968 to 1997. He first met Norbert Elias at the Third World Congress of Sociology in Amsterdam in 1956. He was influential in promoting Elias’s work while it was still almost unknown in the Netherlands and abroad. He was one of the editors of Human Figurations, the Festschrift presented to Norbert Elias on his eightieth birthday in 1977. Besides his numerous publications in Dutch, he has also published the following books in English: Dutch Society (1967), Sociology in the Balance (a critical comparison of Elias’s ideas with those of other twentieth-century sociologists; 1977), Nihilism and Culture (1980), Fire and Civilization (1992), and The Course of Human History: Economic Growth, Social Process and Civilization (with E.L. Jones and Stephen Mennell, 1996) and Mappae Mundi: Humans and their Habitats in a Long-Term Sociolo-Ecological Perspective (with Bert Vries, 2002). With Stephen Mennell he edited The Norbert Elias Reader (Blackwell, 1998) and Norbert Elias on Civilization, Power, and Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 1998). '
Johan Goudsblom – known to his friends as ‘Joop’ – was Professor of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam from 1968 to 1997. He first met Norbert Elias at the Third World Congress of Sociology in Amsterdam in 1956. He was influential in promoting Elias’s work while it was still almost unknown in the Netherlands and abroad. He was one of the editors of Human Figurations, the Festschrift presented to Norbert Elias on his eightieth birthday in 1977. Besides his numerous publications in Dutch, he has also published the following books in English: Dutch Society (1967), Sociology in the Balance (a critical comparison of Elias’s ideas with those of other twentieth-century sociologists; 1977), Nihilism and Culture (1980), Fire and Civilization (1992), and The Course of Human History: Economic Growth, Social Process and Civilization (with E.L. Jones and Stephen Mennell, 1996) and Mappae Mundi: Humans and their Habitats in a Long-Term Sociolo-Ecological Perspective (with Bert Vries, 2002). With Stephen Mennell he edited The Norbert Elias Reader (Blackwell, 1998) and Norbert Elias on Civilization, Power, and Knowledge (University of Chicago Press, 1998). '
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