A Revised Look at the World
To the Editor:
In his Spring 2009 article, “The World Without Us” (vol. 22, no. 2), Ricardo Duchesne discusses my book Social Transformations: A General Theory of Historical Development (Blackwell, 1995) as an example of a view of history that embraces both cultural relativism and anti-progressivism. Duchesne’s main points are essentially these:
Sanderson contends that there is nothing inherent in the concept of social evolution that requires that it must be progressive.
Sanderson completely rejects the idea that social evolution has been progressive.
Sanderson concludes that hunter-gatherer societies have been the most progressive.
Sanderson concedes that the rise of industrial capitalism has improved living standards for the most advanced industrial countries, and to some extent for poorer countries, but also claims that the absolute number of the world’s people living in poverty has increased
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