Social Evolution

Why does poverty exist? Why is there social pathology and human degradation? Is it always because of oppression and discrimination? No, says Professor Seymour Itzkoff of Smith College. The real reason is the tragedy of low human intelligence and the consequent inability of humans to compete in highly complex and dynamic economic and social environments. The Road to Equality: Evolution and Social Reality contains Itzkoff's highly controversial analysis of the failures of the welfare approach to helping the poor. It also contains his radical solution to the perennial problems of inequality in nations and the consequent turmoil and revolution. Equalize the intelligence of your nation, Itzkoff argues, and you will soon eliminate the tragic social and economic differences between large portions of the population. It is high intelligence in groups of humans that creates civilization and prosperity in the first place. Merely placing individuals of lower intelligence in such environments has not ensured their success. And it never will, predicts the professor, because it violates the facts of our evolutionary and sociobiological nature. The 21st century will change the relationships of nations in the most radical manner that history has ever seen. The requirements of technological competency have put a premium on high educable intelligence. Even today we see that nations of uniformly high intelligence of various racial and ethnic heritage are pulling away from those with lower national intellectual profiles. Itzkoff writes that many of the social pathologies in nations such as the United States, as well as their relative economic decline, can be so attributed. The future of human equality, heconcludes, must lie in an international resolve to face up to the most basic challenge to world peace, the variability of intelligence in the human species.

The Ephemeral Civilization is an astonishing intellectual feat in which Snooks develops an original and ground-breaking analysis of changing sociopolitical forms over the past 3,000 years.

This uniquely comprehensive historical study analyses and explains how international societies function. After examining the ancient state systems, the author looks in more detail at our worldwide contemporary society, which grew out of them.The book demonstrates that relations between states are not normally anarchic, but organized international or supernational societies regulated by elaborate rules and practices, which derive substantially from experience. Our present international society, for all its individuality, is only the latest in the series. The Evolution of International Society is a major contribution to international theory, and to our understanding of how relations between states operate. Current interest in international order and hegemonial authority, and the renewed concern with history in political science, make this a timely book.

This analysis of modern problems suggests that human evolution is tragic. Kitahara argues that a logical inconsistency in the philosophy of the Enlightenment has caused humans to approach their environment in a way that is inconsistent with their biological background. He concludes that the tyranny of the majority and the technology humans have developed deny human variation, and that the drive to manipulate the environment is the wellspring of modern, sociocultural phenomena. This book is of immense value to scholars of anthropology, sociology, philosophy, history, political science, and environmental studies.

In his national bestseller Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam illuminated the decline of social capital in the US. Now, in Democracies in Flux, Putnam brings together a group of leading scholars who broaden his findings as they examine the state of social capital in eight advanced democracies around the world. The book is packed with many intriguing revelations. The contributors note, for instance, that waning participation in unions, churches, and political parties seems to be virtually universal, a troubling discovery as these forms of social capital are especially important for empowering less educated, less affluent portions of the population. Indeed, in general, the researchers found more social grouping among the affluent than among the working classes and they find evidence of a younger generation that is singularly uninterested in politics, distrustful both of politicians and of others, cynical about public affairs, and less inclined to participate in enduring social organizations. On the bright side, social capital appears as strong as ever in Sweden, where 40% of the adult population participate in "study circles"--small groups who meet weekly for educational discussions. Offering a panoramic look at social capital around the world, this book makes an important contribution to our understanding of these phenomena.