Lifelines from Our Past

by Leften Stavros Stavrianos

Book Overview

This book offers an extraordinary interpretation of world history, from the paleolithic era to the present. Renowned historian L.S. Stavrianos conceptualizes human history into three categories:... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394560949
• ISBN13: 9780394560946
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Coherent Way to Look at World History

Intriguing approach to world history: No dates, no kings, no wars. Instead, a categorizing of human societies into 3 groups: Kinship, Tributary, and Capitalist. For the layperson, this approach makes a lot more sense than the traditional one, since it allows us to see societal PATTERNS without the distractions of individual national "events." I loved this book! Doni Tamblyn is author of Laugh and Learn: 95 Ways to Use Humor for More Effective Teaching and Training and The Big Book of Humorous Training Games (Big Book of Business Games Series)

A Concise History of Society

This book is not a comprehensive history of all human societies of the world, past and present. Rather, it provides a guide, a framework for understanding how societies have functioned and do so today. Stavrianos divides human social history into those dominated by kinship (the past hundred thousand years or so up to 10,000 BP), tributary relations, and capitalism, which he subdivides into commercial, industrial, and high-tech. Though dated--it was published in 1987 on the eve of the Soviet collapse--it is a good primer for the development of the world-system and a baseline for tracing the developments since then. I recommend it highly.

Useful linkage of past, present, and future.

Professor Stavrianos' useful scheme divides human societies into three phases: kinship societies, which prevailed until the agricultural revolution; tributary societies (or "civilizations"), and capitalist societies, which appeared around 1500 and dominate the world today. Through "lifeline" issues; ecology, gender relations, social relations, and war, the three society types are explored in detail and in relationship to each other and in linkage to our present and future. The author's refreshingly clear and jargon-free writing brings to life the entire sweep of human history, and makes issues of vital interest accessible not only to the student of history but also the general reader. Highly recommended. (The "score" rating is a feature of the page. This reviewer does not willingly "score" books.)