The Theory of Cultural and Social Selection

by W.G. Runciman

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.

266 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Rich · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book uses and relies heavily on these two concepts: Richard Dawkins' term meme, and the philosophical sociological term just-so story.

There are some contradictions in this book, particularly in its tangents and criticisms of topics where is struggles to remain consistent philosophically because it continues in its primary course contrary to the criticism it introduces in its tangents, and a lot of revisitations of philosophical and sociological concepts but overall it is thought-provoking. The conclusion is sort of that cultures have been and will continue to be unpredictable (for reasons convincingly described in the book) and that's part of the reason why, to use my own poor phrasing and word choice, history is unpredictable in terms of creating predictive models.

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