The revolutionary strength of weak ties скачать в хорошем качестве

The revolutionary strength of weak ties

Søren M. Sindbæk (Aarhus University) The archaeological exploration of urban societies in the past grew in response to modern sociology and its concern with industrial cities and the mass society state. This motivated cardinal texts like Wirth’s ‘Urban way of life’ and Childe’s ‘Urban Revolution’, together with dozens of trait lists that attempted to detail the social functions and evolutionary vectors of early cities. Today, these texts seem marred by their obsession to craft a progressive pattern from broader human experience to peculiar twentieth-century abominations. In 1973 the sociologist Mark Granovetter published a strikingly original thesis on the ‘strength of weak ties’, today a founding text in the study of social networks. Yet few have noticed that this concept was born in direct critique of Wirth’s view of urbanism, and till today archaeology has failed to take notice of one of sociology’s key concepts. This paper argues that a new focus on ‘weak ties’ points us back on track to the principle significance of past urbanism, and explains why some shambolic iron-age centres appear more urban than much larger court capitals or temple cities.