Walter Garrison Runciman's Books

Third and concluding volume on social theory, applying distinctive methodology to case of twentieth-century England.

What kind of social animal are we? A provocative and stimulating answer

A multi-disciplinary look at English society over three centuries, arguing that although much about society has changed - technology, lifestyles, amenities, beliefs, attitudes, norms, and values - the distribution of political, ideological, and economic power between society's constituent roles has stayed the same.

What kind of social animal are we? A provocative and stimulating answer

Report of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice

The concluding volume of W.G. Runciman's trilogy on social theory applies his theory and methodology to the case of twentieth-century English society. He shows how England's capitalist mode of production, liberal mode of persuasion, and democratic mode of coercion evolved in the aftermath of World War I from what they had been since the 1880s, yet did not evolve significantly following World War II. His explanation demonstrates that some economic, ideological and political practices were favored over others in an increasingly complex environment, neither predictable nor controllable by policymakers.

W.G. Runciman's masterly book sets out the present extent of our knowledge about how human groups, communities, institutions, and societies work and the social forces that act upon people who live within them. In a brief span, Runciman conveys both how fascinating the study of society is and what a particularly exciting time this is for that study, with all the developments being made in the behavioral sciences, whether in demography, linguistics, or economics, or in genetics, biological anthropology, and developmental and cognitive psychology. The linking theme of the book is an approach to sociology based not on the outdated dogmas of Marxism or Social Darwinism but on current neo-evolutionary theory.

In this concluding volume of his trilogy on social theory, W. G. Runciman applies to the case of twentieth-century English society the methodology (distinguishing reportage, explanation, description, and evaluation) and theory of the preceding two volumes. Volume III shows how England's capitalist mode of production, liberal mode of persuasion, and democratic mode of coercion evolved in the aftermath of the First World War from what they had been since the 1880s, but then did not, in turn, evolve significantly following the Second World War. The explanation rests on an analysis of the selective pressures favouring some economic, ideological, and political practices over others in an increasingly complex environment, neither predictable nor controllable by policy-makers. This is supported by a graphic account of the changes themselves and how they were experienced by different segments of English society.

In The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection, W.G. Runciman presents an original and wide-ranging account of the fundamental process by which human cultures and societies come to be of the different kinds that they are. Drawing on and extending recent advances in neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, Runciman argues that collective human behaviour should be analyzed as the acting-out of information transmitted at the three separate but interacting levels of heritable variation and competitive selection - the biological, the cultural, and the social. The implications which this carries for a reformulation of the traditional agenda of comparative and historical sociology are explored with the help of selected examples, and located within the context of current debates about sociological theory and practice. The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection is a succinct and highly imaginative contribution to one of the great intellectual debates of our times, from one of the world's leading social theorists"--Provided by publisher.

A succinct and highly imaginative contribution to one of the great intellectual debates of our times.

Includes subject index on pages 256-261, also checklist of RCCJ Research Studies publications, list of witnesses, etc.

Book's by Walter Garrison Runciman

A Treatise on Social Theory

A Treatise on Social Theory

The Social Animal

The Social Animal

Very Different, But Much the Same

Very Different, But Much the Same

The Social Animal

The Social Animal

Report of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice

Report of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice

A Treatise on Social Theory: Volume 3, Applied Social Theory

A Treatise on Social Theory: Volume 3, Applied Social Theory

O animal social

O animal social

A Treatise on Social Theory

A Treatise on Social Theory

The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection

The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection

The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection

The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection

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