State Level Formation Summary

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Edith Leung
Professor Barbieri-Low
History 2A: World History
03 December 2014
The Mystery of State Level Formation: An Analysis of the Origin of the State and Ancient Society
Most people today are represented by a government that makes decisions on their behalf. Their political representatives enact laws, collect taxes, and decide how to allocate the money it receives among other responsibilities. How humankind shifted from living a nomadic lifestyle to being part of state level society with a centralized government is curious. It happens throughout the world at various times and independently of each other. Those concerned with history seek to describe why it happened but have always failed to conceive an explanation that properly satisfies …show more content…

People enclosed by environmental circumscription—mountains, bodies of water, deserts, and forests respectively—inevitably engaged in battle for prime land. Carneiro’s influences can easily be drawn back to Social Darwinist Herbert Spencer and German socialist Franz Oppenheimer. Carneiro did not pioneer any fresh ideas on the formation of the state. Prior to A Theory of the Origin of the State, both Herbert Spencer and Franz Oppenheimer argued that state-level societies developed because of “competition and conflict” and that the continuation of conflict would lead to centralization. Oppenheimer, like Spencer, also argued that the strong would then subjugate the weak. While Carneiro agrees that warfare is a prime mover, he argues that there must be conditions set forth to properly explain why certain nomadic groups did not eventually settle into a state. The people who lost could easily settle somewhere new which Carneiro describes as fissioning.9 However, in areas with environmental circumscription, they were cornered and conquered. This pattern also occurred in alternative situations where villages were unable to escape elsewhere. Environmental circumscription was not the only instance that engaged people in battle. They could be circumscribed by other people, or there could be a scarcity of resources that confined people to settle …show more content…

"Course Intro." History 2A. University of California, Santa Barbara. Isla Vista Theater, Isla Vista. 3 Oct 2014. Lecture.
Barbieri-Low, Anthony. "Theories for the Rise of State Level Societies." History 2A. University of California, Santa Barbara. Isla Vista Theater, Isla Vista. 13 Oct 2014. Lecture.
Barbieri-Low, Anthony. "Warfare and State Formation." History 2A. University of California, Santa Barbara. Isla Vista Theater, Isla Vista. 15 Oct 2014.

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