1st Edition

Cultural Evolution The Empirical and Theoretical Landscape

By Kevin McCaffree Copyright 2022
272 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

272 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

272 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Since the dawn of social science, theorists have debated how and why societies appear to change, develop and evolve. Today, this question is pursued by scholars across many different disciplines and our understanding of these dynamics has grown markedly. Yet, there remain important areas of disagreement and debate: what is the difference between societal change, development and evolution? What... Read more

Introduction

Chapter 1. The Social Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness

Chapter 2. "Cultural Evolution," Descriptively

Chapter 3. Evolutionary Sociology

Chapter 4. Cyclic Theories

Chapter 5. Cumulative Cultural Evolution

Chapter 6. Memetics

Chapter 7. The Evolution of Norms, Values and Identities

Chapter 8. Toward an Integration and Theoretical Extension

Biography

Kevin McCaffree is a professor of sociology at the University of North Texas. He is the author or co-author of five books, co-editor of Theoretical Sociology: The Future of a Disciplinary Foundation and series co-editor (with Jonathan H. Turner) of Evolutionary Analysis in the Social Sciences. In addition to these works, he has authored or co-authored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and handbook chapters on a variety of topics ranging from cultural evolution to criminology to the sociology of empathy.