Last week I read and digressed (recall) on Josephine Quinn’s excellent (2024) How the World Made the West: a 4,000 Year History. Along the way I expressed some misgivings on how she tells the story about her main polemical target, the tendency to treat civilizations as social kinds, especially associated with the idea of superiority and homogeneity. I added Quinn “associates this idea with eighteenth century stadial thought, and especially nineteenth century Victorian (and French) imperia...| digressionsimpressions.substack.com
While reading Joseph Tainter’s (1988) The Collapse of Complex Societies (recall this post; and here), I had noted that he frequently criticizes Alfred Kroeber’s analysis of the collapse of societies.| digressionsimpressions.substack.com