An emphatically original work. . . . The book makes the point quite forcibly that sociology makes no sense unless it is anchored, not only in evolutionary biology, but also in anthropology.
Pierre L. van den Berghe, University of Washington Stephen Sanderson is one of the leading figures in the world today among scholars trying to reconnect the social and biological sciences. His new book is cutting-edge. It is a unique argument, bound to excite, irritate, and initiate lively debate. No one else has said what he is saying in this book. The argument is extremely well organized, and the author writes in an engaging manner.
Alexandra Maryanski, University of California, Riverside This is a break-through in sociological theory, demonstrating how a powerful new conflict theory can be framed from Neo-Darwinian, Marxian, Weberian, and other sources.
Dr. Peter Meyer, Universitaet Augsburg The best parts of Sanderson's book are the early sections, where he reviews and critiques the major existing paradigms of sociology, including functionalism, Marxism, and sociobiology.
CHOICE
Stephen Sanderson's The Evolution of Human Sociality provides a serious and wide-ranging treatise on sociobiology, its relationship to other styles of social explanation, and its pertinence to various domains of social life. Sanderson has given us a highly commendable work, and one that would surely benefit our discipline if its contentions were widely read and seriously engaged.
Contemporary Sociology
Stephen Sanderson's most recent book provides a powerful corrective to the current fragmented state of sociological theorizing. Sanderson's principal aim is to construct a viable theoretical foundation for sociology. He attempts a synthesis of ideas drawn primarily from conflict, exchange, cultural materialist, and sociobiologial theoretical premises. He then employs these tools to assess several topics that are of continuing interest to sociologists—the nature of human sexuality, gender relations and the family; the evolution of systems of economic behavior; the nature and transformation of dominance orders in human societies; and the nature of the politics of war. But the value of his contribution is found in the variety of topics and the scope of empirical evidence that he is able to handle successfully by reference to his synthesized theoretical principles.
Timothy Crippen, Mary Washington University This ambitious book is chock full of telling criticisms and worthy efforts at interdisciplinary synthesis. I hope that sociologists read it and take it seriously, and any evolutionist who is willing to push on despite finding nits to pick will get a lot out of it, too.
Quarterly Review Of Biology