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Document Details : Title: The Origins and Strenghts of Early Civil Societies Author(s): WARBURTON, David A. Journal: Bibliotheca Orientalis Volume: 79 Issue: 5-6 Date: 2022 Pages: 470-508 DOI: 10.2143/BIOR.79.5.3292081 Abstract : Two works touch in very different ways on the matter of the 'natural' character of early complex social organisations. Whereas D. Graeber and D. Wengrow (The Dawn of everything. A New History of Humanity, New York 2021) deal with the end of Prehistory and early societies, A.A. Moin and A. Strathern (Sacred Kingship in World History. Between Immanence and Transcendence, New York 2022) deal with the nature and history of Sacred Kingship. Some of the content and much of the methodology of these books is not directly relevant to Oriental Studies as such, but the general subject matter, scope, approach, methodology, assumptions, conclusions and claims of these books are of fundamental importance to all research into early human social history. All Orientalists – each individually doing current research into segments of the most important and longest narrative in human social history, stretching from the origins to modern times – should therefore be conscious of these works, and draw their own conclusions about what the work might mean for their own work. |
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