Methods for Human History: Studying Social, Cultural, and Biological Evolution

202 Pages·2020·2.794 MB·English

by  Patrick Manning

Patrick Manning
Methods
for Human
History
Studying Social,
Cultural,
and Biological
Evolution
Methods for Human History
Patrick Manning
Methods for Human
History
Studying Social, Cultural, and Biological Evolution
Patrick Manning
World History Center
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-53881-1 ISBN 978-3-030-53882-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53882-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
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Cover credit: Cindy Hopkins/Alamy Stock Photo Caption: Largo de Pelourinho, this plaza in
the historic center of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, once housed slave auctions (‘pelourinho’ trans-
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A
cknowledgments
I wish to acknowledge the various experiences that have introduced me to
the challenges and the pleasures of exploring academic knowledge across
disciplinary boundaries. As an undergraduate at Caltech (1959–1963), I
encountered ample doses of math, chemistry, and history, and smaller doses
of physics, biology, English, geology, and economics, plus encouragement to
link them. Working with Philip Curtin and Jan Vansina as a graduate student
at the University of Wisconsin—Madison (1963–1967), I found that African
History also included anthropology, linguistics, politics, and agricultural eco-
nomics. I focused on economic history and took a second MS in economics
with Jeffrey Williamson. Once I was teaching, William S. Griffiths introduced
me to C-language programming as he guided me through my initial simu-
lation of African population and migration. During 1978–1988, I held a
Guggenheim Fellowship at the Population Studies Center at the University of
Pennsylvania, where I learned from leading lights in demography.
At Northeastern University (1984–2006), I was jointly appointed in
History and African-American Studies. The latter department gave me close
interactions with specialists in music, theatre, visual art, sociology, political
science, and economics, in a common project to study connections across
the African continent and the New World diaspora. When Northeastern’s
graduate program in world history began (from 1994), I was able to teach a
remarkable range of courses at the global level, including courses for history
grads on interdisciplinary methodology in 2000 and 2001. At the University
of Pittsburgh (2006–2016), I was able to teach three courses on interdisci-
plinary methodology, each including over 15 students from a wide range of
disciplines (the syllabi are available on my website). Many of the students in
those courses were outstanding. They included, in 2009, Jean Bessette, Dan
Bisbee, Dan Chyutin, Racheal Forlow, Amy Hoffman, Jim Hommes, Ahmet
Izmirlioglu, Liz Molnar, and Molly Nichols. Outstanding in 2012 were
Sarah Bishop, John Christie-Searle, Lauren Collister, Richard Gray, Sharon
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Quinsaat, Sanjana Ravi, Peter Wood, Yu Yawen, and Qi Zhang. (Sanjana
Ravi was awarded a fellowship during which she co-authored a method-
ological article with me.) In 2015, outstanding were Matt Drwenski, Aura
Jirau Arroyo, Ognjen Kohanic, Carlos Alberto López, Rongqian Ma, Jacob
Pomerantz, Aisling Quigley, Bennett Sherry, and Weiyan Xiong.
In addition to these structural ties, the many individuals from whose
insights and energies I have benefited include colleagues, students, and
other acquaintances. At Northeastern: Yinghong Cheng, Pam Brooks,
Bin Yang, Jeff Sommers, Eric Martin, David Kalivas, Tiffany Trimmer, and
Deborah Smith Johnston. At Pitt: Madalina Veres, Ahmet Izmirlioglu, Chris
Eirkson, Jim Hommes, and Lars Peterson. Skilled grad students coached
me in genetics (Jason Carson), geology and climatology (Aubrey Hillman),
and statistics (Yun Zhang, James Sharpnack, Bowen Yi, and especially Yu
Liu). The faculty colleagues to whom I am most indebted are Siddharth
Chandra, Jan Lucassen, Leo Lucassen, Dan Bain, Geoffrey Bowker, Molly
Warsh, Ruth Mostern, Marcus Rediker, Vladimir Zadorozhny, and Hassan
Karimi. I am deeply grateful for insights on the full manuscript from four
readers: Chris Chase-Dunn, Eugene Anderson, Bill Wimsatt, and Felipe
Fernández-Armesto. I appreciate the comments on specific sections by Ralph
Adolphs, David J. Anderson, William Croft, Curtis V. Manning, David Reich,
Ian Tattersall, Michael Tomasello, and Bill Wimsatt. I have been greatly
pleased with the work of editor Megan Laddusaw and of Palgrave Macmillan
for bringing the work to publication.
For nearly the past thirty years, my daughter, Gina Manning, has been a
teacher of English. In that time, I have gained inspiration through association
with her devotion to finding ways to help young people learn in a variety of
circumstances—in public and private schools, for students with special needs
and for those recognized as gifted. I visited classes, read her reports, and saw
how many of the students made dramatic advances within each year. She sets
an impressive standard; I believe I have learned from it.
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
Part I Methods for Human History
2 Human Evolution: Biological, Cultural, and Social 23
3 Physical Science and Biological Coevolution 33
4 Systems and Information Science 41
5 Behavior of Individuals, Groups, and Networks 53
6 Study of Human Institutions 63
7 Emotions and Human Nature 75
Part II Disciplines and Theories
8 Disciplines and Their Evolution 83
9 Natural Selection in an Imperial Era, 1850–1945 91
10 DNA in a Progressive Era, 1945–1980 109
vii
viii CONTENTS
11 Ecology and Society in a Neoliberal Era, 1980–2010 131
12 Cross-Disciplinary Analysis in Global Tension,
2010–2020 157
References 173
Index 191
l t
ist of Ables
Table 1.1 Methods summarized, by chapter 16
Table 2.1 Assumptions in various theories of evolution 31
ix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
The purpose of this book is to assist students and researchers in learning and
applying multiple methods for historical and cross-disciplinary analysis. It is to
provide practical guidelines for expanding knowledge of the human order as
we explore it in this global age. The book is to assist readers in reaching new
resources—across the many fields of knowledge and back in time to moments
of causation and interaction—in hopes of resolving the dilemmas of the pres-
ent and the mysteries of the past. The scope of the book includes identifying
major topics and issues in research, along with the disciplines, theories, meth-
ods, and data through which research questions are explored. The time frame
crosses three geological epochs, including the present.1
This survey focuses on disciplines, theories, and especially methods of his-
torical study. Disciplines are the social institutions and analytical engines that
have divided academic knowledge into subsections, then expanding knowl-
edge within each terrain.2 Theories are formal interpretations of the dynamics
in each field of study. Methods involve two basic stages: combining analytical
logic and empirical detail to explore the dynamics of change, and then pre-
senting the results to an audience in the hope of confirming historical and
analytical interpretations.
The benefit of gaining an acquaintance with the full map of disciplines and
methods associated with human history and evolution is that of expanding
historical literacy. Advanced study generally provides researchers with deep
1 The time frame of this work, in geological terms, includes: introduction to the Pleistocene
epoch (from Homo erectus over 2 million years ago and including Homo sapiens for the past
300,000 years), the Holocene epoch (from 12,000 years ago), and the Anthropocene epoch
(from 200 years ago). Much of the analysis of human evolution can be organized into these three
major periods of time.
2 By “institutions,” I mean organizations composed of members who share a common set of
practices and objectives.
© The Author(s) 2020 1
P. Manning, Methods for Human History,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53882-8_1