Distinguishing four sources of power in human societies – ideological, economic, military and political – The Sources of Social Power traces their interrelations throughout human history In this first volume, Michael Mann examines interrelations between these elements from neolithic times, through ancient Near Eastern civilizations, the classical Mediterranean age and medieval Europe, up to just before the Industrial Revolution in England It offers explanations of the emergence of the state and social stratification; of city-states, militaristic empires and the persistent interaction between them; of the world salvation religions; and of the particular dynamism of medieval and early modern Europe It ends by generalizing about the nature of overall social development, the varying forms of social cohesion and the role of classes and class struggle in history First published in 1986, this new edition of Volume 1 includes a new preface by the author examining the impact and legacy of the work

The sources of social power

This essay tries to specify the origins, mechanisms and results of the autonomous power which the state possesses in relation to the major power groupings of ‘civil society’. The argument is couched generally, but it derives from a large, ongoing empirical research project into the development of power in human societies. At the moment, my generalisations are bolder about agrarian societies; concerning industrial societies I will be more tentative. I define the state and then pursue the implications of that definition. I discuss two essential parts of the definition, centrality and territoriality, in relation to two types of state power, termed here despotic and infrastructural power. I argue that state autonomy, of both despotic and infrastructural forms, flows principally from the state's unique ability to provide a territorially-centralised form of organization.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0003975600004239

The autonomous power of the state: its origins, mechanisms and results

War is a highly complex and dynamic form of social conflict. This book demonstrates the importance of using sociological tools to understand the changing character of war and organised violence. The author offers an original analysis of the historical and contemporary impact that coercion and warfare have on the transformation of social life, and vice versa. Although war and violence were decisive components in the formation of modernity most analyses tend to shy away from the sociological study of the gory origins of contemporary social life. In contrast, this book brings the study of organised violence to the fore by providing a wide-ranging sociological analysis that links classical and contemporary theories with specific historical and geographical contexts. Topics covered include violence before modernity, warfare in the modern age, nationalism and war, war propaganda, battlefield solidarity, war and social stratification, gender and organised violence, and the new wars debate.

https://assets.cambridge.org/97805215/16518/frontmatter/9780521516518_frontmatter.pdf

The Sociology of War and Violence

Three elements of late nineteenth century society are examined: imperialism as the urgent moment of sociopolitical necessity, Social Darwinism as compelling ideology of an imperial capitalism, and environmental determinism as first version of modern geography. To legitimate imperial conflict and conquest, sociological principles were derived from biology using the methodological linking device of the organismic analogy. Fundamental differences between humans and the rest of nature could not be comprehended within this methodology. Though aimed at a science of society. Social Darwinism in general and environmental determinism as its geographic version were forced to assume a quasi-scientific form in racism, and nature was given a causal power that could not be scientifically justified. Marxism, by comparison, provides a theoretical basis for scientifically comprehending the relations between nature, production, and society. Following Social Darwinism rather than Marxism prevented geography from ac...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2562637.pdf

The Social Origins of Environmental Determinism

Impairment has been set aside in debates about disability dominated by the social model. This paper seeks to go beyond the Cartesianism which produces this neglect. It suggests that radical disability studies can prosper from a critique of modernity which entails a shift from its singular epistemological origins in the critique of capitalism. The argument challenges the contention that the oppression of disabled people is reducible to social restrictions which are the outcome of a set of structural determinations. It suggests that the oppression of disabled people is also umbilically linked to the visual constitution of impairment in the scopic regime of modernity. The vision of modernity is impaired by the assumption that to see is to know, that is, by its ocularcentrism. In deconstructing the visual culture of modernity, it is possible to demonstrate that the non-disabled gaze is a product of this specific way of seeing which actually constructs the world that it claims to discover. Using the work of Sa...

The Constitution of Impairment: Modernity and the aesthetic of oppression

The outlines of sociology

PREFACE TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION -- EDITOR'S PREFACE -- introduction THE SOCIOLOGY OF LUDWIG GUMPLOWICZ -- Gumplowicz, Character and Thought. The Group Basis of Social Life. Functionalism and the Natural History of Society. The Sociology of Conflict. Belief and Behavior: The Sociology of Knowledge. Reception of Gumplowicz in American Sociology. A Note on Gum-plowicz* Grundriss der Soziologie. Bibliography to Introduction. -- OUTLINES OF SOCIOLOGY -- Preface to the First Edition of 1885 86 Preface to the Second Edition of 1905 -- part one THE HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY -- 1. Auguste Comte -- 2. Lambert Quetelet -- 3. Herbert Spencer -- 4. Paul Henri Thiery Holbach -- 5. Albert Schaffle -- 6. Paul von Lilienfeld -- 7. Adolf Bastian -- 8. Julius Lippert -- 9. Mohl, Gneist and Stein -- 10. Carey and Post -- 11. Philosophers of History -- 12. Gustave LeBonx -- part two FOUNDATIONS AND FUNDAMENTALS OF SOCIOLOGY -- 1. The Three Classes of Phenomena -- 2. Universal Laws -- 3. Concept, Function and Scope of Sociology -- 4. The Substratum of Social Laws -- 5. Concept and Essence of Social Law -- 6. The Method of Sociology -- part three INTERCONNECTION OF SOCIAL ELEMENTS -- 1. The Primitive Horde -- 2. The State.

Ludwig Gumplowicz

Papers

The outlines of sociology

Outlines of sociology

The Outlines of Sociology

Der Rassenkampf : soziologische Untersuchungen

Die sociologische Staatsidee