Guest
Open course “The Rise and Fall of Complex Societies“, Eric H. Cline. Lecture 10 | SAS UTMN | School of Advanced Studies, SAS Streamed live on May 21, 2020 Lecture 10, Case Studies of Collapse, guest lecture by Eric H. Cline Eric H. Cline is the former Chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and current Director of the Capitol Archaeological Institute at The George Washington University. A National Geographic Explorer, NEH Public Scholar, and Fulbright scholar with degrees from Dartmouth, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania, he is an active field archaeologist with more than 30 seasons of excavation and survey experience in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus, Greece, Crete, and the United States. He is the author or editor of 20 books, translations of which have appeared in nineteen different languages. Open course “The Rise and Fall of Complex Societies“ This open course is a lecture part of an elective for SAS students. Classes are conducted on Zoom and are broadcast for the general audience on YouTube. You can leave your questions and comments for prof. Silverstein in the comment section below. He might answer some of them. Civilization represents the apex of human socio-political achievement and its destruction the epitome of societal failure. We will evaluate definitions of civilization and collapse and conduct a survey of civilizations from history. Cultures examined will span the Bronze Age to Modernity and from geographical regions covering Eurasia to the Americas. ⠀ We shall evaluate theories and models of the behavioural and natural factors that nurtured success and precipitated failure to identify commonalities and idiosyncratic circumstances across space and time. This open course allows the audience to become conversant in theory associated with the dynamics of complex societies and be able to apply these in a critical manner to contemporary times. ⠀ Original from here:
