New Evolutionary Sociology

Jonathan H. Turner is 38th University Professor of the University of California System; Research Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Riverside. He is also Director of the Institute for Theoretical Social Science, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. He is the author of hundreds of research articles and the author of more than 40 distinguished books, including most recently, The New Evolutionary Sociology (with Richard Machalek).Richard Machalek is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Wyoming. His work addresses the evolution of social behavior among both human and non-human species. He analyzes phenomena such as the evolution of societal complexity among both humans and the eusocial insects, the evolution of expropriative social behaviors across species lines, emergent properties of both human and nonhuman societies, the evolved human psychology implicated in reciprocity and exchange, and theoretical points of convergence and divergence between sociology and sociobiology. His publications have appeared in venues such as Sociological Theory, the American Journal of Sociology, Advances in Group Processes, Rationality and Society, Advances in Human Ecology and various encyclopedias, handbooks, and other edited volumes. He is co-editor (with Jonathan H. Turner and Alexandra Maryanski) of Handbook on Evolution and Society: Toward an Evolutionary Social Science (Routledge).

The New Evolutionary Sociology is the most recent and comprehensive treatment of the bridge between evolutionary biology and the principles of sociology.Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard UniversityThis volume is on the cutting edge in the effort to develop explanations of human sociocultural evolution within a comparative framework that includes biology, neuroscience, non-human sociology as well as anthropology, sociology and the comparative world-systems perspective. The chapters on the emergence of non-human social complexity are original contributions that should be of interest to all scholars and students in the comparative social sciences. Christopher Chase-Dunn, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of California-RiversideTurner and Machalek offer insightful assessments of several distinctive approaches to what they call the new evolutionary sociology. These perspectives are compatible only in varying degrees, and some of them certainly have generated more coherent explanations of human social behavior. All told the volume has great merit, especially if it encourages readers to shed the blinders of disciplinary chauvinism, to pursue a serious rapprochement with relevant aspects of evolutionary biology, and to begin to realize the promise of a genuinely scientific sociology.Timothy Crippen, Professor of Sociology, University of Mary WashingtonThe New Evolutionary Sociology by Turner and Machalek is clearly the best treatment available about the important and exceedingly relevant topic of human sociocultural evolution. The authors discuss in detail how sociologists have used evolutionary paradigms in a variety of different investigations. In addition, they discuss many of the challenges posed by biology and sociobiology and other disciplines. They also introduce several examples of special utility they have used in their studies of evolutionary patterns and social phenomena. Turner and Machalek are clearly the experts in evolutionary sociology. Their new book is written lucidly and authoritatively. I recommend this important book with the greatest enthusiasm.Dudley L. Poston, Jr., Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M University

• 1: A Brief History of Evolutionary Analysis in Sociology PART I: THE CONTINUING SOCIOLOGICAL TRADITION 2: Can Functionalism Be Saved? Toward a More Viable Form of Evolutionary Theorizing 3: Stage-Model Theories of Societal Evolution 4: Inter-societal Models of Societal Evolution 5: New Forms of Ecological Theorizing in Evolutionary Sociology PART II: DARWINIAN ANALYSIS AND ALTERNATIVES 6: The Evolution of Social Behavior by Natural Selection 7: The Rise of Sociobiology 8: Sociobiology and Human Behavior 9: Evolutionary Psychology and the Search for the Adapted Mind 10: The Limitations of Darwinian Analysis 11: New Models of Natural Selection in Socio-Cultural Evolution PART III: NEW DARWINIAN APPROACHES WITHIN SOCIOLOGY 12: New Forms of Comparative Sociology: What Primates Can Tell Sociology about Humans? 13: In Search of Human Nature: Using the Tools of Cross-species Comparative Analysis 14: The Evolution of the Human Brain: Applications of Neurosociology 15: Cross-Species Comparative Sociology 16: Cross-Species Analysis of Megasociality 17: Behavioral and Interpersonal Basis of Megasociality: Evidence from Primates Epilogue: Prospect for a New Evolutionary Sociology Bibliography Index