Nomadic pathways in social evolution / editors of the volume, Nikolay N. Kradin, Dmitri M. Bondarenko, Thomas J. Barfield.

The book is written by anthropologists, historians, and archaeologists specializing in nomadic studies. All the chapters presented here discuss various aspects of one significant problem: how could small nomadic peoples at the outskirts of agricultural civilizations subjugate vast territories between the Mediterranean and the Pacific? What was the impetus that set in motion the overwhelming forces of the nomads which made tremble the royal courts of Europe and Asia? Was it an outcome of any predictable historical process or a result of a chain of random events? A wide sample of nomadic peoples is discussed, mainly on the basis of new data.

Cover -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. INTRODUCTION: SOCIAL EVOLUTION, ALTERNATIVES, AND NOMADISM -- Evolution and alternatives -- Alternativity in evolution -- Nomads in evolution -- Nomadic alternative -- Some comments to other chapters of the volume -- 2. NOMADS OF THE EURASIAN STEPPES IN HISTORICAL RETROSPECTIVE -- 3. TYPOLOGY OF PRE-STATES AND STATEHOOD SYSTEMS OF NOMADS -- 4. CULTURAL CAPITAL, LIVESTOCK RAIDING, AND THE MILITARY ADVANTAGE OF TRADITIONAL PASTORALISTS -- Introduction -- Cultural Capital: The Concept and an Example.

The Cultural Capital of Pastoral Nomads -- Military Power among Pastoral Nomads -- Modernization -- Ibn Khaldun's Social Law -- Endnotes -- 5. NOMADIC EMPIRES:ORIGINS, RISE, DECLINE -- Nomadic Empire: what is it? -- How did nomads come to empire? -- Pathways of origins for nomadic empires -- Types of nomadic empires -- The Structure of Nomadic Empire -- Nomadic empires and settled civilizations -- Decline and Fall of Nomadic Empires -- 6. PECULIARITIES OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SARMATO-ALANS AND THEIR IMAGE IN THE EVIDENCE OF OTHER CULTURES.

7. THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIERARCHICALS TRUCTURES IN THE BRONZE AND EARLY IRON AGE SOCIETIES OF THE SOUTH OF EASTERN EUROPE -- 8. PENETRATION OF NOMADS TO THE ARABIAN SOUTH AND FORMATION OF TRIBAL ORANIZATION AMONG THE NORTH-EAST YEMEN AGRICULTURAL POPULATION* -- 9. MODES OF POLITOGENESIS AMONGTHE TSWANA OF SOUTH AFRICA -- 10. POWER AMONG MONGOL NOMADS OFCHINGGIS KHAN'S EPOCH -- 11. POLITICAL CULTURE OF THE TURKIC-MONGOLIAN NOMADS IN HISTORICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE -- 1. Sulde: Political Terminology of Eurasian Nomads -- 2. Ritual political violence among nomads of Eurasia.

3. Practice of ravage/destruction of graves -- 4. Standard in Military Culture and its Semantics -- 12. THE CHINGGISIDS AND THEIR STATUS IN CENTRAL ASIA AND EAST EUROPE -- 13. GOVERNMENT OF THE TURKISTAN REGION NATIVE POPULATION IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE -- 14. CONCLUSION -- Defining nomadic pastoralists -- Cultural ecology of nomadic pastoralists -- Levels of social complexity -- An evolutionary sequence? -- List of Contributors -- Back cover.

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