Cultural behavior exhibits many of the features of complex adaptive systems, but is in some ways distinctive. Cultural complexity is enigmatic, improbable, and difficult to maintain. It constrains behavior, limits understanding of processes, and imposes economic burdens. The advantages of complexity are modified by human cognition and limited by economic and environmental costs. This book explores in detail how and why prehistoric Southwestern societies changed in complexity, and thus offers important new perspectives on the evolution of culture.The papers discuss the factors that made prehistoric Southwesterners vulnerable to an arid environment, and their strategies to lessen risk and stress. The topics of the book link Southwestern data to fields such as economics, climatology, and evolutionary theory. In addition to a readership of archaeologists and anthropologists, this volume will be of interest to specialists in these related fields and to those concerned with complex adaptive systems and the work of the Santa Fe Institute.

Evolving Complexity And Environmental Risk In The Prehistoric Southwest (SANTA FE INSTITUTE STUDIES IN THE SCIENCES OF COMPLEXITY PROCEEDINGS)

Tainter, Joseph A.

Science & Math

CRC-Press

This book explores how and why prehistoric Southwestern societies changed in complexity, and offers important new perspectives on evolution of culture. It discusses the factors that made prehistoric Southwesterners vulnerable to an arid environment, and their strategies to lessen risk and stress.

Evolving Complexity And Environmental Risk In The Prehistoric Southwest: Proceedings of the Workshop “Resource Stress, Economic Uncertainty, and Human ... in Santa Fe, NM (Santa Fe Institute Series)

Business & Money

Tainter, Bonnie Bagley

Economics

While environmentalists insist that lower rates of consumption of natural resources are essential for a sustainable future, many economists dismiss the notion that resource limits act to constrain modern, creative societies. The conflict between these views tinges political debate at all levels and hinders our ability to plan for the future.
 Supply-Side Sustainability offers a fresh approach to this dilemma by integrating ecological and social science approaches in an interdisciplinary treatment of sustainability. Written by two ecologists and an anthropologist, this book discusses organisms, landscapes, populations, communities, biomes, the biosphere, ecosystems and energy flows, as well as patterns of sustainability and collapse in human societies, from hunter-gatherer groups to empires to today's industrial world. These diverse topics are integrated within a new framework that translates the authors' advances in hierarchy and complexity theory into a form useful to professionals in science, government, and business.
The result is a much-needed blueprint for a cost-effective management regime, one that makes problem-solving efforts themselves sustainable over time. The authors demonstrate that long-term, cost-effective resource management can be achieved by managing the contexts of productive systems, rather than by managing the commodities that natural systems produce.

Supply-Side Sustainability

Allen, Timothy F.H.

Hoekstra, Thomas W.

Allen, Professor Timothy F. H.

Tainter, Professor Joseph A.

Hoekstra, Professor Thomas W.

Columbia University Press

Evolving Complexity And Environmental Risk In The Prehistoric Southwest: Proceedings of the Workshop “Resource Stress, Economic Uncertainty, and Human ... Held February 25–29, 1992 in Santa Fe, NM

History

Americas

La désintégration politique est, à travers l'Histoire, une caractéristique constante des sociétés humaines. Lorsque le moteur de l'économie mondiale tousse et hésite, comme il le fit en 2008 avec une gigantesque crise bancaire et monétaire, les experts se demandent si, cette fois-ci, la fin de tout est réellement proche. Mais, au juste, quand et pourquoi les États, les empires et les civilisations s'effondrent-ils ? Et, inversement, quand et pourquoi survivent-ils, et continuent-ils de prospérer en bravant des périls insensés?\n﻿L'auteur passe en revue une vingtaine de cas d'effondrement, et examine les diverses explications données depuis plus de deux mille ans.\nEn se concentrant sur trois cas d'effondrement bien documentés, les Romains, les Mayas et les Chacoans, il développe une nouvelle théorie, dont la portée est considérable. Les idées de l'auteur soulèvent ainsi des questions nouvelles et cruciales sur l'avenir des sociétés industrielles. Et bien au-delà des spécialistes des domaines étudiés, cet ouvrage intéressera tous ceux qui s'interrogent sur l'avenir de notre civilisation.

L'effondrement des sociétés complexes: Nouvelle édition (French Edition)

Le Retour Aux Sources

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Tainter, Joseph A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Tainter, Joseph A.