The Sources of Social Power: Volume 1, A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760

Rating:
Summary: New insights into the sociology of early christianity
Review: As a student of religions, I came away from this volume with some paradigmatically key concepts: the contributing role of economics and sociology to the development of transcendent ideological power, early christianity as a response to a crisis in imperial social identity, the political and social threats christianity presented the Roman empire; and the importance of the normative role of the church in the early middle ages, and of the christian ecumenical identity that helped glue Europe together beginning with the Carolingians. There is much more in Mann's book than these lessons, such as his expositions of the four sources of social power and their application to human history. I enjoyed his exposition of the contributions of classical Greece to the dialectic of history. On the negative side, I found tedious the author's constant defense of his theory vis-a-vis other sociologists. This book requires serious study, but pays off handsomely in stimulating new insights into the sociology of history.

Rating:
Summary: A superlative theoretical synthesis
Review: This is one of the three most stimulating books I've read in the last 20 years. Mann posits civilizations as overlapping networks of power -- ideological, military, economic, and political. He described the extensive and intensive capabilites of each type of network from place to place over time, and is pretty good about minimizing any Eurocentrism, though there is room for improvement.

Although written in an intensely academic style -- not a book for the faint of heart or the short of attention span -- it will well reward the considered reader.

Rating:
Summary: A superlative theoretical synthesis
Review: This is one of the three most stimulating books I've read in the last 20 years. Mann posits civilizations as overlapping networks of power -- ideological, military, economic, and political. He described the extensive and intensive capabilites of each type of network from place to place over time, and is pretty good about minimizing any Eurocentrism, though there is room for improvement.

Although written in an intensely academic style -- not a book for the faint of heart or the short of attention span -- it will well reward the considered reader.