Where Are We Heading:The Evolution of Humans and Things pdf

Ian Hodder è professore di archeologia della famiglia Dunleavie presso la Stanford University. Fellow della British Academy, ha ricevuto numerosi riconoscimenti per i suoi successi, tra cui la Medaglia Oscar Montelius dalla Società Svedese degli Antiquari, la Medaglia commemorativa Huxley dal Royal Anthropological Institute, il Premio Internazionale Fyssen e la Medaglia d'Oro dall'Archaeological Institute of America, insieme a dottorati honoris causa dalle università di Bristol e Leiden. Hodder è autore di numerosi libri, tra cui Symbols in Action (Cambridge, 1982), Reading the Past (Cambridge, 1982) e Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things (2012).

Where Are We Heading:The Evolution of Humans and Things pdf da Ian Hodder

In this engaging exploration, archaeologist Ian Hodder departs from the two prevailing modes of thought about human evolution: the older idea of constant advancement toward a civilized ideal and the newer one of a directionless process of natural selection. Instead, he proposes a theory of human evolution and history based on “entanglement,” the ever-increasing mutual dependency between humans and things. Not only do humans become dependent on things, Hodder asserts, but things become dependent on humans, requiring an endless succession of new innovations. It is this mutual dependency that creates the dominant trend in both cultural and genetic evolution. He selects a small number of cases, ranging in significance from the invention of the wheel down to Christmas tree lights, to show how entanglement has created webs of human-thing dependency that encircle the world and limit our responses to global crises.