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Reviews the book "Lemur Social Systems and Their Ecological Basis," edited by P. M. Kappeler, J. U. Ganzhorn and Peter Jörg.

A review of the book "The Project As a Social System: Asia-Pacific Perspectives on Project Management," edited by Henry Linger and Jill Owen is presented.

This review discusses the stability of social orders in light of the recent work Violence and Social Orders by Douglass North, John Wallis and Barry Weingast (hereafter NWW). The purpose of this book was to understand the two great transitions that have occurred in human society. The first, the agricultural revolution, resulted in a transition from hunter–gather society to what NWW call limited access society. This first transition occurred at various times and places, but generally about 10,000 years before the present. The second revolution, the social/industrial/technological revolution, from limited access to what NWW call open access, occurred initially in a few societies, particularly Britain and the United States, within a fairly brief period between 1600 and 1860. Currently, all the West European economies, as well the Western offshoots (the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and Japan have crossed the economic threshold of $20,000/capita. However, inequality across the set of all political economies is extreme, and likely to increase. The paper attempts to complement the institutional analysis of NWW, deploying some theoretical ideas from social choice theory, game theory, and economics (particularly the role of factors of production, land, capital and labor). Emphasis is placed on the variation of risk preference between autocrats and other factor groups. The discussion also alludes to the notion of structural stability of dynamical social systems, and the possibility of chaos. It is argued that all the limited access societies face a Malthusian constraint, generated by the pressure of population on land. In such societies, particularly in Africa in the present day, this quandary over land is likely to lead to the exercise of power by risk preferring autocrats who will restrain any move to open access democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the book "The Historical Evolution of World-System," by Christopher Chase-Dunn and E. N. Anderson

Reviews the book "Emergence in Complex, Cognitive, Social and Biological Systems," edited by Gianfranco Minati and Eliano Pessa.

The article presents information related to the research paper entitled "Rural Crisis and the Reproduction of Family Systems: Celibacy As a Problem in the Aragonese Pyrenees." In this paper the changing status of celibacy within the context of socio-economic transformations in the Aragonese Pyrenees of Spain has been analyzed. The paper shows that although celibacy and migration have been present in the area for many years, they have only come to constitute a problem at a conscious level since the economic crisis has prevented these Pyrenean highlanders from emigrating.

Reviews the book "The Performance of Social Systems: Perspectives and Problems," by Francisco Parra-Luna.

Reviews the book "The Evolution of Social Systems," edited by J. Friedman and M.J. Rowlands.

Reviews the book "Western Society After the Holocaust," edited by Lyman H. Legters.

The article reviews the book "The other Hong Kong report: 1997," edited by Y.S. Joseph Cheng.

Reviews the book "The Canadian Criminal Justice System," by Craig L. Boydell and Ingrid Arnet Connidis

The I festschrift i is clearly and appropriately celebratory and adequately situates Martins' oeuvre as a major contribution to scholarship, but it raises troublesome questions about the future, not just of sociology, but of the university system. But enough of these preliminaries, the chapters are divided into those that concentrate directly on Martins' work, those that compare Martins with other sociologists, and those that only address Martins' work obliquely. Taking his lead from Martins' "Technology, Modernity, Politics", in which Martins comments 'the post-historical phrase presents itself in the typical form of gazettes and statistical bulletins, the end of history being also the "end" of historical narrative and narratability' (1998: 155). [Extracted from the article]

Reviews the book "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy," by Joseph A. Schumpeter.

Reviews the book "Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator," by Arthur Herman.

Reviews the book "My Pilgrim's Progress: Media Studies: 1950-1998," by George W.S. Trow.

Reviews the book "Borodin: Stalin's Man in China," by Dan N. Jacobs.

Reviews the book "Australian Society," edited by Keith Hancock.

The article reviews the book "Money in Economic Systems," by George Macesich and Hui-Liang Tsai.

The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread - And Why They Stop: by Adam Kucharski BASIC BOOKS, 2020, 352 PP., US$30.00, ISBN-13: 978154167431 Furthermore, in the context of fear transmission, an important realization over the past decade is that while contagion in social systems and disease transmission were initially considered similar, they are now known to be substantially different. Moreover, when describing social contagion in terms of epidemiological concepts, Kucharski tends to focus on the similarities between the various kinds of contagion, often leaving out important differences. [Extracted from the article]

The article reviews the book "Innovation in Complex Social Systems," edited by Petra Ahrweiler.

The article reviews the book "Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa: Africa-Centered and Canaanite-Israelite Perspective," by Dierk Lange.

Reviews the book "British Society, 1680-1880: Dynamism, Containment and Change," by Richard Price.

Reviews the book "Productivity and the Social System--the USSR and the West," by Abram Bergson.

Reviews the book "National Survival in Dependent Societies: Social Change in Canada and Poland," edited by Raymond Breton, Gilles House, Gary Caldwell, Edmund Mokrzycki and Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski.

Reviews the book "Black Masculinity: The Black Male's Role in American Society," by Robert Staples.

Reviews the book "Social System and Legal Process: Theory Comparative Perspectives, and Special Studies," edited by Harry M. Johnson.

Reviews the book "The Structure of Social Systems," by Frederick L. Bates and Clyde Harvey.

The article reviews the book "Complexity and Co-Evolution: Continuity and Change in Socio-Economic Systems," by Elisabeth Garnsey and James McGlade.

The article reviews the book "Sociocibernética, lineamientos de un paradigma," edited by Chaime Marcuello Servos.

Reviews the book "India Working: Essays on Society and Economy," by Barbara Harris-White.

Reviews the book "Law as a Social System," by Niklas Luhmann, translated by Klaus A. Ziegert, edited by Fatima Kastner, Richard Nobles, David Schiff and Rosamund Ziegert.

Reviews the book "Revolutionary Theory," by William H. Friedland.

Reviews the book "Building the Free Society: Democracy, Capitalism and Catholic Social Teaching," edited by George Weicel and Robert Royal.

Reviews the book "The Deadly Simple Mechanics of Society," by John Helmer.

Reviews the book "Conflict and Consensus: A Festschrift in Honor of Lewis A Coser," edited by Walter W. Powell and Richard Robbins.

The article reviews the book " A Fragile Social Fabric? Fairness, Trust, and Commitment in Canada," by Raymond Breton, Norbert J. Hartmann, Jos L. Lennards, and Paul Reed.

Reviews the book "Le strutture delta disugualianza: Capi, appartenenze et gerarchia nel mondo Akan dell'Africa occidentale," by Stefano Boni.

Reviews the book "Cultures of Darkness: Night Travels in the Histories of Transgression," by Bryan D. Palmer.

Reviews the book `God's Government Begun: The Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform, 1842-46,' by Thomas Hamm.

Reviews the book "Changing Rural Social Systems: Adaptation and Survival," by Nan E. Johnson, and Ching-Li Wang.

Reviews the book "Sociological Methodology 1983-1984," edited by Samuel Leinhardt.

Reviews the book `Primate Social Systems,' by R.I.M. Dunbar.

Reviews the book "Essentials of Canadian Society," by John Goyder.

Reviews two books "Sociology: Its Nature, Scope and Elements"; "Sociology: The Study of Social Systems," by Ronald Fletcher.

Reviews the book "Beyond Dispute. The Invention of Team Syntegrity," by Stafford Beer.

Reviews the book "The Environment: From Surplus to Scarcity," by Allan Schnaiberg.

The article reviews the book "Ordering Love: Liberal Societies and the Memory of God," by David L. Schindler.

The article reviews the book "Biocapital: The Constitution of Postgenomic Life" by Kaushik Sunder Rajan.