Social Change In A Peripheral Society

Social Change in a Peripheral Society: The Creation of a Balkan Colony focuses on the nature of social change in peripheral societies, societies on the margins of the capitalist European world that have been absorbed by the dynamic industrial economies and turned into “colonial or “neocolonial societies. This book emphasizes the theory of an interdependent world-system dominated by core societies that subject, by direct or indirect means, peripheral societies. Studies on several peripheral societies, primarily those in the contemporary “third world , that are in the former colonies of Europe in Latin America, Asia, and Africa are also described. This text likewise explains the tremendous vitality of European capitalism by deliberating the difference between Ottoman and capitalist exploitation of Romania. This publication is beneficial to historians, economists, and anthropologists interested in the social change in peripheral society.

Context

Essays examine the history, economies, political problems, revolutionary movements, class systems, social development, and cultures of the underdeveloped countries from a radical perspective.

First Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Preface: The primary purpose of this book is to set forth the essential sources and contests of the Western idea of social development. The book is in large part historical, in smaller part analytical and critical. In the rather long final chapter I explore some of the difficulties which seem to me to arise in the study of social change when this study is made subject to the fundamental concepts of developmentalism.

This reissue of the now classic Sociological Worlds (originally published in 1995) attempts to present a comprehensive picture of human social life--from the perspective of the "comparative-historical revolution" in sociology and presents some of the best theoretical and empirical work that is now being done by comparative-historical sociologists, as well as work by their close cousins, socio-cultural anthropologists. From this perspective, readers gain a picture of the major ways in which human societies differ. For this new library edition, Professor Sanderson has provided both a new preface and three contributions that did not appear in the original edition.

This book attempts to show how motives, emotions, psychological defenses, and unconscious mental processes affects social change. Using the constructs of psychology, sociology and anthropology, the author builds a conceptual bridge between the individual and small groups, and social processes. Several significant dimensions of social change are analyzed, including the emergences of new insights on the part of the individual, changes in social roles and social controls, organizational change, and new trends in art and religion.