ANTHRO 41A Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Great Divergence, Trans-Cultural Diffusion, Reductionism

• School: UC-Irvine
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTHRO 41A
• Professor: Thomas Douglas

Document Summary

Unchanged traditions, and backwards progression. obasic cause for european progress is some intellectual or spiritual factor known as the. Europe as: ancient, savage, atavistic, uncivilized, evil etc. Further, racial differences explain nothing about culture or cultural evolution . Demography: europeans culture teaches them to control their sexual urges and be successful at family planning but non-europeans don"t, blaut: there is evidence that all societies engage in population control. Environmental determinism argues that the environment in uences human affairs. Europeans be superior to non-europeans (e. g. , rainfall farming ! free thinking) Environmental reductionism argues that the natural environment acts as the primary factor of cultural/social development. (environmental determinism and environmental reductionism are very similar. ) Most of the lands where ruled by their own landlords and before. 1492 all these countries were making the same progress in terms of feudalism and proto-capitalism. Protocapitalism refers to trade between large scale regions which lead to an economic situation where trade becomes more important than agriculture.