I received this announcement as response to posting TOC [table of
contents of JWSR 2 to several worldhistory lists]. Turn about is fair play.
NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT
Graeme Donald Snooks 'THE DYNAMIC SOCIETY. Exploring the Sources of Global
Change' Routledge, London and New York, 1996, pp. xvii + 491.
Dynamic Society explores the driving force of global change over the past 2
million years. It is divided into three parts:
- Part 1 - outlines and explains the entire history of life on
earth, by developing a fully dynamic model, not just of genetic change, but
of the broader wave-like fluctuations of biological activity. Central to
this is the dynamic role of the individual operating in a competitive
environment.
- Part II - provides a critical review of current interpretations
about the course of history and the forces driving it.
- Part III - develops an entirely new interpretation of the
dynamics of human society over the past 2 million years. It analyses how
individuals in a competitive environment generate growth by investing in
the dynamic strategies of family multiplication, conquest, commerce, and
technological change. It argues that the rise and fall of societies is an
outcome of the development and exhaustion of these strategies.
The author also employs his dynamic-strategy model to discuss future
outcomes for human society, controversially arguing that far from leading
to ecological destruction, growth-inducing technological change is both
necessary and liberating. Ultimately, the book demonstrates that dynamism,
not stasis, is the essential condition of human society, as it is of life.
Douglass C. North, Nobel Laureate in Economics, has written of this book:
'Professor Snooks has undertaken as ambitious a project as one could
possibly conceive of . . . it is a stimulating work, and one which shows an
immense amount of reading, and an organization of the material into an
interesting and highly speculative, but fascinating structure.'
G.D. Snooks
Coghlan Professor and Head Phone: 61 6 2493226
Department of Economic History Fax: 61 6 2490395
Research School of Social Sciences
Institute of Advanced Studies
Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200