Sociology
10 C. Chase-Dunn Tuesday-Thursday 9:40
a.m. - 11:00 a.m Olmsted 1208
The City
W. O. J. Niewencamp, “The
mill at
v. 4-30-12
This is a
course on the emergence and transformation of human settlement systems[1] in
comparative and evolutionary perspective since the Paleolithic. We will
consider the annual circular treks of nomads from camp to camp, the emergence
of winter hamlets and the transition to permanent villages and towns, the
emergence and growth of cities, and the co-evolution of sedentary and nomadic
peoples, the emergence of the car-based multicentric
cities and the development of the contemporary global city system. We will
study the forces that have led humans to live in larger and larger urban
agglomerations and the problems of sustainability that urban growth processes have
created. Topics that will be covered are: problems associated with the estimation
of the population sizes of modern and premodern
settlements; settlement size distributions; high density and low density
settlements; the relationships between empires and cities; the processes of
urbanization; world cities and global cities; megacities and slums in the
Global South; the whole global system of settlements, the Southern California
urban agglomeration; and the problems that are associated with the pattern of
low-density urban growth (urban sprawl).
We will also study industrial urbanization, megacities and the urbanization of
the global system with its world cities tightly linked
to one another by communications, transportation, trade and organizational
networks. Contemporary urban issues in
The course will employ the comparative world-systems
perspective to examine the conditions and problems of living in settlements in
evolutionary perspective. A primer on the modern world-systems perspective is
Thomas Richard Shannon’s An Introduction to the World-Systems Perspective
(Westview 1996). Used copies are available from half.com
Grading
is based on the midterm exam (30%) [May
3], the final exam (30%), [June 14]
attendance (15%), and a short (less than 10 pp. typed, double-spaced) research paper
that comparatively analyses the settlement system of a premodern
world-system (25%) [due date June 7]. The midterm and the final will be in-class essay
exams.
The following books are available at the Campus Store and are on reserve:
William Cronon,
Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
Robert Bruegmann,
Sprawl: a compact history
Edna Bonacich
and Jake B. Wilson, Getting the Goods:
Ports, Labor and the Logistics Revolution.(
The Cities
Reader is available on the
course iLearn web site.
April 3 no lecture
April 5
Overview of the course
April 10 The comparative world-systems perspective
*T.D.
Hall and C. Chase-Dunn, “Global social
change in the long run”
Chapter 3. in C. Chase-Dunn and
April 12 Settlement Systems
*
C. Chase-Dunn, “The role of ecosettlement systems in social evolution”
in Cities
Reader.
Settlement systems: hamlets, villages and towns; Settlement size distributions
* C. Chase-Dunn “The
changing role of cities in world-systems” in Cities Reader.
Jill
E. Neitzel (ed.)
* Christopher Chase-Dunn, Daniel Pasciuti, Alexis Alvarez and Thomas D. Hall “ The ancient Mesopotamian and
Egyptian world-systems” in Cities Reader.
Marc
Van De Mieroop, The
East Asia, South Asia, Mesoamerica, the
*Christopher
Chase-Dunn and Alice Willard, Systems of Cities and
World-Systems in the City Reader.
Justin Jennings, The First Globalizations
* Christopher Chase-Dunn, Alexis Alvarez and Daniel Pasciuti, “Power and size: urbanization and empire formation in world-systems” in Cities Reader.
May 1 (study
questions for the Midterm handed out) (Topic for research
paper is due) Cities, Empires and Hegemony2
* Christopher Chase-Dunn and Alice
Willard, “Cities
in the Central Political/Military Network Since CE 1200:Size Hierarchy and
Domination in Cities Reader.
Charles
Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European states, AD 990-1990
(Blackwell, 1990)
From capitalist city-state in the semiperiphery to capitalist nation-state in the core: The rise of the Dutch republic
May 3 Midterm Exam
* Christopher Chase-Dunn and E. Susan
Manning, “City
systems and world-systems: Four millennia of city growth and decline’ in Cities
Reader.
Janet
Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony (
The
urbanization of societies and world urbanization
Industrial cities: From demographic sink to demographic fountain.
Saskia Sassen, The Global City:
May 10 Urbanization in the United States
* William Cronon,
Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West Preface, Chapters 1-3
May 15 Urbanization in the United States
* William Cronon,
Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West Chapters 4-6
May 17 Urbanization in the United States
* William Cronon,
Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West Chapter 7-Epilogue
Robert J. Sampson, Great
American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect.
* Christopher
Chase-Dunn, “The
coming of urban primacy in Latin America”in Cities Reader.
Mike
Davis, Planet of Slums
Mike
Davis and Daniel B. Monk, Evil Paradises:
Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism
David
A. Smith,
May 22 The
Southern California Urban Agglomeration:
The premodern world-system in
Southern California; Los Angeles in
global culture; Who Rules Socal?l
Suburban
power and the
“globalization project”
Allen J. Scott and Edward Soja, The City:
Edna
Bonacich and Richard Appelbaum,
Behind the Label
Low
density and multicentric cities; Mixed Use
Developments
June 7 Next
3 futures and Lyrical Upsurge [Research paper is Due](Final
Study Questions Handed Out) *Mike Davis,
“Who Will Build the Ark?” Available on the Course Web Site under Course
Materials
June 14 8:10
am to 10 am final exam
Research Paper for Sociology
10
The task is to study a premodern[2] settlement system of a whole political-military network [3] composed of interacting polities. On April 26 please turn in a single sheet of paper with your name, email address and the main premodern settlement that will be the focus of your study of a settlement system and the time period you will study. Also include the citations for three specific library (non-Internet) sources of information about the focal settlement and the other settlements with which it is interacting.
A
political/military network is a network of polities that are allying and making
war on one another, like the modern international system or earlier regional
PMNs composed of chiefdoms, states or empires. PMNs have settlement systems
composed of cities, towns, villages and hamlets and may be in interaction with
nomadic peoples who live in temporary camps. Pick a single focal settlement
(for example a specific Chumash village before the Europeans arrived in
Southern California, or
Data on the population sizes of cities are available from Tertius Chandler’s Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth.
The population estimates for the cities in
Tell the story of the settlement system of which your
focal settlement is a part, and suggest explanations for the patterns that you
find. The text of your paper should be no longer than 10 typewritten
double-spaced pages. Include a bibliography of your sources and maps if you can
find them. The paper is due on June 7.