Marc's Reviews > Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations

This is in line with Bruce Trigger's Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study, it is a good addition to it and it is more digestible (well, a bit more digestible). Yoffee and Trigger both distance themselves from the neo-evolutionary model of state formation. This was developed more than half a century ago and classifies the many forms of human societies generally into four types: band, tribe, chiefdom and state. Yoffee pulls this view to pieces, perhaps a little too radically. His study is very theoretical, and it takes a while before Yoffee becomes more concrete (he himself is a specialist in Mesopotamia, and that is very clear from this book). Very interesting, but at the same time very specialist. Nevertheless a worthy read! More in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....