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Technology, Literacy, and the Evolution of Society

Implications of the Work of Jack Goody

• Edited by David R. Olson, Michael Cole

• Price: $110.00
• Binding: Hardback
• Pages: 384
• Published by: Psychology Press
• Publication Date: 23rd June 2006
• ISBN: 978-0-8058-5402-2

About the Book

Inspired by the seminal work of Jack Goody, a historical anthropologist specializing in the study of social structure and change, Technology, Literacy, and the Evolution of Society gathers diverse perspectives of 20 distinguished historians, anthropologists, psychologists, and educators to address the role of technologies in social stability and change in traditional and modern societies. In this interdisciplinary text, scholars examine the ways in which local languages and cultural traditions, modes of production and communication, patterns of local knowledge and authority affect how people and cultures resist or accommodate demands for such change.

With work from acclaimed contributors, this pioneering volume is the first analysis of the influence of Jack Goody. It provides a thorough look at the relations between societies of different practices, customs, and values, determining the mechanisms behind sociocultural stability and change.

Technology, Literacy, and the Evolution of Society is intended for graduate students and academics in history, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and education, as well as academics and all others interested in pursuing the directions and implications of the work and influence of Jack Goody.

Table of Contents

Contents: Preface: Technology and Social Change. Part I: Introduction. R. Langlois, An Introduction to Jack Goody's Historical Anthropology. Part II: Historical Anthropology: Kinship, Inheritance, and the State. K. Hart, Agrarian Civilization and Modern World Society. P. Ebrey, Succession to High Office: The Chinese Case. C. Hann, Between East and West: Greek Catholic Icons and Cultural Boundaries. E. Hobsbawm, Culture and Gender in European Bourgeois Society 1870-1914. M. Bloch, D. Sperber, Kinship and Evolved Psychological Dispositions: The Mother's Brother Controversy Reconsidered. G.E.R. Llyod, The Use and Abuse of Classification. J-C. Schmitt, Images in Flowers. Part III: Orality, Literacy, and Written Culture. G. Hawthorn, Orality in Politics. S. Hawkins, Writing and Kinship in Northern Ghana: From Cowry Payments to Paper Documents. C. Bazerman, The Writing of Social Organization and the Literate Situating of Cognition: Extending Goody's Social Implications of Writing. E.N. Goody, Dynamics of the Emergence of Sociocultural Institutional Practices. R. Finnegan, Not by Worlds Alone: Reclothing the "Oral". D.R. Olson, The Documentary Tradition in Mind and Society. M. Cole, J. Cole, Rethinking the Goody Myth. Bibliography of Jack Goody's Work.