Pre-Industrial Societies

I have to disagree with the two reviewers. I found the book very useful. When we think about the past, whether about our national heritage or about the historical past, we usually project onto it our contemporary assumptions about how things work. These assumptions spring from our experience of modernity--vast wealth; vast technological capabilities to shape our world; vast and pervasive power of the state; ample food supply being taken for granted, at least in the first world; 2% of the population involved in food production instead of upwards of 80%; an integrated culture such that farmers in remote corners of the country are watching the same movies and TV shows and listening to the same music as people in Manhattan; integrated economy, such that farms are no longer self supporting even in the realm of food production, but rather produce a single crop for market and buy their food at the grocery store like everyone else; social homogenization across vast spaces such that Californians, Floridians, and Mainers all think of themselves as Americans rather than identifying with the local culture. When we try to imagine the world view and life world of people as close to us in time as Washington and Jefferson--let alone Alexander the Great, Muhammad, or Charlemagne--we have to think all of this away. This is very difficult because modernity seems as natural to us as the air we breathe. Crone's book is a very useful extended thought experiment that makes it possible to do just this. It is a bit polemical at times--but that is just Crone.

I agree with the reader below. So I would only add some more recommendations to read: "The world economy. A millennial perspective" by Angus Maddison; "Power and privilege: A theory of social stratification" by Gerhard Emmanuel Lenski; "The History of Government" by S.E. Finer; "World History. A new perspective" by Clive Ponting; and "The Phenomenon of Religion", by Moojan Momen.