Читать книгу Resilience. Persistence and Change in Landscape Forms онлайн

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In the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, evolutionism, as defined in the natural sciences, was seen as a coherent framework for describing change. Social scientists used these tools to compare different types of civilizations, based on an idea of progress, defined by Enlightenment philosophers as the ultimate goal for humanity. Evolution appeared to offer the means of attaining this goal, by means of a collective movement through a chain of states, with each clearly situated on a linear and cumulative timeline. Given a logical organization of time into a series of periods, it would then be possible to work backwards. In the words of Marc Bloch:

Let us then agree, since we have no choice, to follow the trail backwards, one careful step at a time, examining irregularities and variations as they come, avoiding the all-too-common error of trying to leap at a bound from the 18th century to the Neolithic age. (Bloch 1966, p. xxx)ssss1

Bloch’s reference to pierre polie in the original French (translated here as “Neolithic”) is significant, highlighting the role of technology as an essential factor in the attainment of different developmental stages (Latour 1991). This is further evident in the 19th-century classification of ancient societies: “stone age”, “iron age”, etc. Material and technical characteristics were essential criteria, used in the emerging sciences of ethnology and archeology to define different cultures.